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

[luminous_regnant]

"Being kidnapped's no fun," sighs Golden.

[cross_and_bow]

"Yeah, it sucks," Juliet agrees, patting Aegis on the shoulder comfortingly.

[pythbox]

"The part where someone managed to kidnap War and Peace definitely didn't get out," says Merryweather, shaking his head.

[cross_and_bow]

"It is adorable how you and Sue are War and Peace, Aegis. Or vice versa."

[autokinetic]

"They couldn't make up their minds for a while but I think I've been given Peace once and for all at this point. That's why I named the world that. I don't really want to go by it in casual conversation. I still like Aegis better for that."

[luminous_regnant]

"If Sue had been Peace and you War, would you have named your world War?"

[autokinetic]

"Nah," scoffs Aegis, "that would be terrible, I'd have to think of something else then. Or name it Peace anyway."

[pythbox]

"Yes," says Merryweather, "it's practically inconceivable that you would name your world after anyone other than yourself."

Giles snorts.

[autokinetic]

"Hey, we don't all name our worlds after ourselves," laughs Aegis. "I think I'm the only one who did, unless you count Golden translating her theme into Latin!"

[cross_and_bow]

"Angela didn't even rename hers. She just took what her planet was already called and extended it to the world in general."

[luminous_regnant]

"I," says Golden with dignity, "am fond of my theme. And it is a more aesthetically pleasing distinguishing characteristic than 'Here There Be Vampires, Except Not Juliet's Kind'."

[pythbox]

Merryweather just laughs.

[autokinetic]

"Having fun?" Aegis asks him, amused. "Apparently parties are a thing Bells can do. Or at least Stella. I've never tried it, I've been in a kinda party-unfriendly environment."

[luminous_regnant]

"I generally leave my parties to Alice - mine, not Stella's - who has much more fun with them than I do," Golden says.

"Speaking of which," Jasper "Jazz" Cullen says to Whitlock, "do you want to meet my wife and our son, or would that be weird for you?"

[pythbox]

"Sure," Whitlock decides. "Can't be any weirder than coming here in the first place."

[luminous_regnant]

Alice does not have to be called over. She's Alice! She dances into Jasper's waiting arms from her conversation all the way across the room (its ending, of course, timed perfectly), holding onto a squirming toddler. "Hello!" she says, beaming brightly. "I'm Alice, and this is Brandon. I would offer to let you hold him, but he occasionally bites."

"Only sometimes," says Brandon. "You're another Papa," he observes of Whitlock.

[pythbox]

"Apparently so," Whitlock agrees, blinking. "Hello, Alice and Brandon."

Merryweather is amused. Giles picks up on the mood without sharing its causes.

[autokinetic]

"Little half-vampires are super-cute," says Aegis. "So, there's you with your kid, Golden, and there's Angela expecting with her Whistle, I guess all that's left is for somebody with a Sherlock to get knocked up and we'll have collectively tried all the known combinations? Juliet, who do you think'll be first, you or Shell Bell?"

[cross_and_bow]

"I don't know, we haven't exactly sat down and discussed it, but she's the one with the stable empire, I have like five thousand species of demons to individually evaluate and handle before I can claim anything like that," shrugs Juliet. "I'm also not sure kids are a want for me? For us in general?"

[luminous_regnant]

"I would have wanted one eventually. There were other decisive factors in the earliness of Elspeth's birth."

[autokinetic]

"And Angela belongs to a species with fewer than a hundred fifty members and grew up on repopulation rhetoric, right," says Aegis. "Duly noted."

[pythbox]

This is not a conversation that either of the Ruperts particularly wants to be a part of! They exchange a Look.

[autokinetic]

That's okay, the Bells are done talking about it now!

"Thank you for shouting at bureaucrats for me," Aegis tells Merryweather. "Even if it didn't always work."

[pythbox]

"You're welcome," says Merryweather, a little wryly.