it's a dead man's party

[self_composed]

The guest list winds up being pretty huge.

To start with, there are now eight Bells. Pattern isn't bringing anyone besides herself, and Aegis no one besides herself and her Whistle, but everyone else -

Between Alice, the Joker, the rescued Queenie, Kas, Micaiah, and Sue, plus Ghosty who Amariah picked up on her way home, that's seven Whistles. (Stella thinks ahead: there is a soundproofed orgy chamber away from the main party awning. With a few nodes off of it in case more than one orgy forms; she can think of at least two other likely ones.)

There's an equally absurd number of Sherlocks and Tonies if you count them together. They have Juliet's matched set, Shell Bell's matched set, two other matched sets from Bell-less worlds (one with souled vampire, one both human), a stray Tony, and a stray Sherlock from Downside.

Amariah grabbed a random Libby on top of the random extra Whistle, but at least she's not incorporating anyone from home.

Golden's bringing much of her family and many of her friends - although Edward is staying home, that still leaves Elspeth and Jacob, Alice and Jasper with little Brandon, Rosalie and Emmett and little Henry, Nathan accompanying his mate and their child Kerron, Esme and Carlisle and their Lily, Addy, and Elena who'll get to see her brother. Golden claims that this is a conservative list and she could easily have produced another twenty enthusiastic guests. Stella doesn't doubt it. She puts up a few signs reading Please Conduct Adult Conversation Only Via Brainphone. Little Half-Vampires Have Good Ears And Perfect Memories. As a last-minute surprise, Golden has taken Elspeth's suggestion to bring Edward's deceased mother Elizabeth, too.

Juliet has, on top of her boyfriend and his - progenitor? - her tiny Libby, James, a tagalong thereto called Virginia, and a ghost called Minnie, plus Giles.

Angela's list is more modest: her, her husband, and their friends Alleluia and Caleb.

Shell Bell is responsible for half the Sherlocks-and-Tonies all by herself, a tagalong called Pepper, and also someone called Darcy and also Matilda. (Shell Bell is also the reason Angela is not inviting her brother-in-law.)

Stella herself is responsible for inviting Libby, Orfeo, Chris, Mary, Anna, Sandy, Eights, Chainsaw, Lazarus, Kolya (who is informed that it would be awfully inconvenient for a majority of Bells to all have to coordinate on pretending he doesn't exist when only one of them has even met him to be able to identify him in the first place, so he can simply stay home if he's planning to be hidey), and Bridget.

Stella sets up a name tag system. Everyone will have a tag stuck to them. Solo persons - a minority - will just have their names. People with template names and nicknames will have both stamped on automatically. ("Hi! I'm a Bell, and you can call me Stella!"; "Hi! I'm a Whistle, and you can call me Alice!" "Hi! I'm a Sherlock, and I don't have a distinguishing nickname yet but as soon as I pick one it will appear here!")

She conjures up a nice buffet of food and beverages which will stay its correct temperature until consumed, and assorted synthetics for the vampires (labeled not for human consumption), and dishes and flatware (all glass; even some of the food-eating guests might dissolve anything else) and fusses with the awning opacity until it lets in just the right amount of sun, and, what the hell, she throws in a stage in case Angela wants to sing or she decides to play the flute or someone decides to pentagon some other performative skill to entertain the crowd. She makes sure there are enough bathrooms for all the people who still need bathrooms.

She puts out a few tables here and there with little bowls of squares and triangles - a mix of her glowing red and Alice's shifty black - in them for everyone's convenience. She accumulates coins in those sizes faster than she generally uses them and has a great many, so there are plenty for anyone to dip and wish if something comes up. She double-checks to make sure the Martian ground rules prohibit any misuses available for those size coins.

Jane gets one of those high-tech holographic projectors, on wheels, which she promptly manifests in, drives around the floor, and makes faces through.

Comments

[edgeofyourseat]

Alice and Queenie are technically the party's first guests, because they arrive almost as soon as Stella starts setting up. And wonder of wonders, they don't immediately head for the orgy chamber.

[gunpowdergelatine]

Queenie is wearing a gorgeous little black dress that is, on very close inspection, actually a dark dark red.

[neverbeatme]

James arrives with the initial wave of the Sunshine contingent, which also includes Juliet and Virginia.

"Ooh, nametags," she says, peering at hers.

"...Why," wonders Virginia, "does mine say I'm a [Template unnamed]?"

[cross_and_bow]

"Uh," says Juliet, peering at the nametag, "good question, I guess there's another of you who was previously unidentified as same so Stella's nametag program got confused and this is what the error message looks like?" She looks around for other redheads.

[bellfounding]

There are two stray Whistles and stray alts of each of Stella's staff mints. Pattern means to have some sort of arrangement with at least one by the end of this party, because how else is she going to take over the world? Okay, with Jane serving as transport she could probably siphon off largesse from the other seven and get along, but that would be ignominious. All else being equal she'd rather go with the alts of Stella's staff, she thinks, because the overwhelming regularity with Whistles appears to involve dating them and she's not so sure about that.

There's Stella's employees - and there are their alts - and Pattern's going to walk right up to them.

[nowait_letme]

"...show you sometime," Chainsaw is saying, his arm slung around Sandy's shoulders.

[dark_light]

Amariah finds Juliet's Sherlock - she can't tell him apart from the others by soul anymore, but he still dresses differently.

She hugs him without explanation.

[eversomuchfun]

"Hello to you too," he says, mildly amused, and he hugs back.

[her_imperial_radiance]

[Libby, James, Elizabeth, you should all come meet my grandma!] Elspeth says, when her wave of the Aurum delegation arrives.

[neverbeatme]

[Why should I come meet your grandma?]

[she_sells_seashells]

[Attention Sherlocks and Tonies! There's a critical mass of you forming over by the dessert end of the buffet, and you should all gather and figure out a nickname system once and for all!]

[eversomuchfun]

[I don't eat food and I have a distinguishing nickname already; can I sit this one out?]

[autokinetic]

Aegis sort of wishes she were as far along in empire-building as some of the others. At least she's not completely on her own like poor Pattern, but her only guest is off in a pile of himselves. Oh well. Everybody here is filtered for being potentially interesting to people like her! There's a guy standing alone with a plate of food looking around with bemusement. She dances over in his direction. Her exo's been rendered quite redundant but she hasn't taken it off yet, so she's still all-over copper. "Hi -" She read his name tag. "Is that pronounced with a hard G or a soft G? Or like a J?"

[pythbox]

"Giles," says Giles. (It's the J.) "And you are... Aegis?"

[jovahs_heiress]

Angela and Alleluia have decided to sing for the party. Mostly to put Alleluia more at ease by giving her something to do other than mingling with so many strange people. (Caleb, by contrast, is having a grand time all by himself.) They know the same repertoire of popular and sacred music, for the most part, and they've performed one hymn a capella so far and are discussing their next selection.

[dearsweetsoulful]

A Sherlock appears. His nametag denotes him 'Plus'.

"Hello," he says. "I play the violin."

[bellfounding]

Pattern is over here, inserting herself in an exchange between Stella and Golden about how to take advantage of suddenly easier commuting between their worlds. Amariah has been listening in too, but it's mostly a Stella-Golden conversation.

[neverbeatme]

A-Libby-who-you-can-call-James approaches this cluster.

"I want to talk to you guys about the brainphone," she says.

[temporal_affairs]

When Eights emerges airlock-style from the orgy chamber, Nathan's nearby, Kerron sitting on his shoulders as a not-a-fox-anymore. "Eights, hi!" Nathan says. "This is my and the Joker's son, Kerron."

[colorshapes]

"Hi, Eights!" says Kerron, waving.

[luminous_regnant]

Addy wants to talk about magic! There, that Bell has magic that isn't just minting - that random girl over there does too - there's Lazarus! Addy herds them all into one place with vague fluttering about magic and then grins broadly.

[dark_light]

"So, hi! I remember you," to Matilda, "but not you," to Lazarus.

[manofmyword]

At some point, a long while after he went in, the Joker emerges from the orgy chamber. (He is dressed, so his nametag identifies him.)

He looks for Pattern.

[bellfounding]

Pattern's over here, talking to a stray small half-vampire whose nametag says he is called Henry.

[jovahs_heiress]

When Micaiah emerges from the orgy chamber, Angela is there to greet him.

"It occurred to me that Beast should probably be general knowledge, in case he dreams his way into Milliways again and he's not - recognizeable," she says. "Did you mention him to the other Whistles?"

[yovahs_kisses]

"Oh! No," he says, "I didn't think of it."

[self_composed]

The next time Stella and Lazarus cross paths, her look is one of speculation.

"Hi," she says.

[nonbird]

"Hi," he says, blushing.

[manofmyword]

The Joker is looking for Angela.

She shouldn't be hard to find.

[jovahs_heiress]

Of the two guests with wings, Angela's the speckly one! She is over there with Elspeth.