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]

[Okay,] Alice says agreeably. [Love you.]

[truthwright]

[Maybe so,] says Kas. [Thanks anyway.]

[yovahs_kisses]

[...Yeah,] says Micaiah, [tell me, then.]

[jovahs_heiress]

[If you wish on a hex for a star to be safe, then it's safe. If you wish on a safe star for an evil to be safe, that works too, and presumably so on.]

[dark_light]

[You're welcome.]

[self_composed]

[Love you too!]

[yovahs_kisses]

[Okay,] says Micaiah. [Thanks. See you later, my angel.]

[manofmyword]

Through all this, the Joker waits.

[jovahs_heiress]

[See you soon, love.]

And into the peal's call:

[Okay. Micaiah knows.]

[self_composed]

[My Alice too.]

[dark_light]

[And Kas.]

[luminous_regnant]

Golden sighs.

[And,] she says to the Joker, [for you: it's just a matter of declawing them with the next coin size down.]

[bellfounding]

[I'll tell whoever I hire, assuming I manage to hire somebody.]

[manofmyword]

[Thanks,] says the Joker.

And he spends a hex for a star for an evil to stick his scars on for good.

[self_composed]

[It's possible I should tell my staff mints, given the whole secretion-of-deadly-weapons-thing. I'll ask Mary how that would go.] Stella absents herself from the call.

[manofmyword]

"You want I should put a word in with one of the spares?" he asks Pattern.

[bellfounding]

"Mary said talking to Queenie would go better overall if somebody, not necessarily me, were in physical contact with her at the time," Pattern says. "So there's that you could help with. I'm not sure what kind of word you'd put in. 'She's a Bell, she's a little clumsy with secrets'?"

[manofmyword]

He chuckles. "Apparently the word is 'hug'. I'll see if she's busy. You rather you go in, or she comes out?"

[pythbox]

[Yes?] says Mary.

[bellfounding]

"I'd just as soon not go in," says Pattern.

[self_composed]

[Good or bad idea to also tell Anna and Sandy about stars and such?]

[pythbox]

[Anna will do basically nothing with that information,] Mary reports. [Sandy... Sandy will do something, but it won't be destructive. You're likelier to be pleased about it than not, whatever it is.]

[manofmyword]

"Mmkay," says the Joker, and he wanders back to the orgy airlock.

[self_composed]

[Do either of them distribute the information elsewhere?]

[bellfounding]

Pattern waits.