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]

"That's what I mean when I say we're all dangerous, though," he says. "I think."

[self_composed]

"Alice doesn't live on an asteroid," points out Stella. "I have an emergency mint-gone-rogue containment protocol, which is designed to work on him, but I don't really expect to need it. For him, anyway, there are other mints. There are levels of danger. Anyone can -" She fumbles for an example. "Make a poor driving decision and hit someone with their car. Slightly fewer people will successfully resort to violence to rescue their girlfriend. Neither of those things is a problem. A tiny subset of people blow up hospitals to get the attention of a masked vigilante."

[truthwright]

"Oh, if you just don't want him blowing up hospitals, put him somewhere there's no Bat," says Petaal. "All the really big showy stuff was for her. And you don't fall in love like that too often."

[self_composed]

"I'm sure the Bat would be thrilled to learn that the terrorist attacks were all her fault," says Stella. "What do you think would happen if I dropped the Joker off in Angela's world on that continent full of Edori?"

[truthwright]

"I don't know," says Kas. "He might like it. He might not. He wouldn't start blowing up Edori."

[self_composed]

"That's good, because they sound like very friendly people and I would not like to be responsible for their exploding."

[truthwright]

Kas laughs.

"You're cute," says Petaal.

[self_composed]

"Thank you."

[truthwright]

Petaal lets out a butterfly-sized giggle.

[self_composed]

"Am I still scary?" she asks.

[truthwright]

"Dunno," says Kas.

Petaal turns herself around until she's facing Stella directly.

[self_composed]

"Boo?" attempts Stella.

[truthwright]

Petaal giggles again, fanning her delicate wings.

[self_composed]

"The daemon thing is very nifty," remarks Stella. "I wonder if I'd have an owl like Amariah's, if I had one."

[truthwright]

"I bet not," says Petaal. "Not unless you were a witch."

[self_composed]

"What d'you think I'd have instead, then?"

[truthwright]

"Path wanted to be a firefly," says Kas. "Or a dragon."

[self_composed]

"Ooh, a dragon," muses Stella.

[truthwright]

Petaal turns into one to demonstrate, a tiny round-bellied green-scaled creature with a long thin sweep of a tail and a short arched neck and batlike wings folded neatly to her back.

"Dragons are fun," she asserts.

[self_composed]

"Looks like," Stella agrees. "I take it all these possibilities for what a daemon winds up as - mean things? Correlate with things?"

[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."