a profusion of whistles

[self_composed]

"I didn't wind up interacting directly with Micaiah much," says Stella, after returning home from a certain visit. "Does he deviate from template significantly? He didn't have wings, so I imagine it was by less than Angela deviates from my template."

Comments

[truthwright]

"They mean something about who you are," says Petaal. "I never really got that. But I guess that makes sense, because we asked the alethiometer and I'm never gonna settle."

[self_composed]

"Do you know what her version of Charlie and Renée have? It doesn't say in our book."

[truthwright]

"Her dad's a wolverine," says Petaal. "I don't think she said about her mom."

[self_composed]

"A wolverine, huh. It's surprising that your world's wound up so recognizably similar to mine - I'd expect all this daemon-having to affect the course of history very sharply - but then again I suppose similar worlds isn't that much more of a surprise than there being versions of me and Whistles in worlds that are any amount of dissimilar."

[truthwright]

"It's weird that you call us Whistles," Kas muses. "I mean, it makes sense from you and it's kind of cute, but it's weird."

[self_composed]

"Well, you don't have name consistency even to the imperfect extent that we do," says Stella. "Alice's middle name is Whistle because I used that for a code name to refer to him anonymously and gender-neutrally when I thought I was having coffee with my nemesis, even though I turned out to be having coffee with my future personnel officer."

[truthwright]

"Like I said, it makes sense from you," says Kas.

"But maybe we should name ourselves too," says Petaal.

"If we can all get together and talk about it sometime," says Kas.

[self_composed]

"I tried it once to see and I can only force the door to places I've been before," says Stella. "But that still means I could get you and Alice and the Joker all together now, if that's enough for a quorum."

[truthwright]

"It'd be a start," he says. "D'you want to step into our world for a bit so you can go there later?"

[self_composed]

"Sure. If I step into your world I might as well also contact Amariah so we can meet each other and presumably I can dump some coins on her," says Stella.

[truthwright]

Petaal turns into a fennec fox again and stands on the table with her front paws braced on the back of Kas's hand, looking toward Stella.

"I want to touch you," she says suddenly.

[self_composed]

Stella blinks.

"Isn't that - some kind of big deal that I don't fully understand? Amariah was very all-capsy about it in her entry. What does it do?"

[truthwright]

"It's the worst thing in the world with the wrong person," says Kas.

"Or the best thing in the world with the right one," says Petaal.

"But for us, not for you. For you it's just..." He shrugs.

"Special," says Petaal. "You know it's something special. Something important for us. It feels like that."

[self_composed]

"...You were unclear about whether I still scare you," Stella says.

[truthwright]

"Yeah," says Petaal.

[self_composed]

"Mightn't that be relevant to whether it's the worst thing or not?"

[truthwright]

"I want to anyway," says Petaal.

[self_composed]

"...Okay. Do you need me to break it off if you seize up, or anything...?"

[truthwright]

Petaal nods her small fuzzy head.

[self_composed]

"Okay."

Stella places her hands flat on the table and holds perfectly still.

[truthwright]

Petaal climbs forward over Kas's hand, leans down, and touches her nose to Stella's fingertip.

Kas inhales audibly.

[self_composed]

"Okay?" asks Stella.

(It feels like mindreading - the deeper kind, the emotion-blob-poking kind. It isn't. She has no new information. But it feels like that.)

[truthwright]

"Okay," Petaal declares, and bumps her nose against Stella's fingers a few more times. "You can pet me if you want," she adds.

Kas is smiling.

[self_composed]

Stella pets her very gently. "Feels like mindreading," she remarks aloud.

[truthwright]

Petaal decides she is feeling cuddly enough to be a viscacha.

Floof!

"Yeah, Amariah kinda said that too," says Kas.