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

[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?]

[prima_sequentem]

[You really should,] says Libby. [I'm on my way, Elsie.]

[dont_look_back]

Orfeo happily follows his imprint.

[her_imperial_radiance]

[You should meet my grandma because she's a you!] Elspeth says, incapable of awaiting dramatic reveal.

[neverbeatme]

James is the first to arrive.

"Hi, Elspeth's grandma!"

[prima_sequentem]

"Hello to you too," says Elspeth's grandma.

Libby shows up next. "You know," she muses, "this probably means I'm never going to be your favourite grandma, doesn't it. Too much competition."

"Were you ever going to be?" wonders the next Libby, whose nametag declares that she has not yet picked a distinguishing nickname.

[her_imperial_radiance]

"Esme is currently still winning," apologizes Elspeth, also constitutionally incapable of many forms of tact.

[dont_look_back]

"Aww, but this one is clearly the best," says Orfeo, indicating the Eosian Libby, knowing perfectly well that no one will take him seriously on the subject.

[prima_sequentem]

The Eosian Libby ruffles his hair. "You know," she says to the non-distinguished Libby from an unnamed world, "you should really pick a nickname."

"Fine," she sighs. "How about Slipstick."

"And I can be Granny," says Elspeth's grandma, "since I'm apparently never going to be known for anything else."

[her_imperial_radiance]

The nametags update themselves accordingly. "I'm sure you could be known for something else, Grandma, you've only been undead for a very short while now," soothes Elspeth.

"You holding up okay, Orfeo?" Jacob asks his former packmate.

[dont_look_back]

"All's well. Libby's aunt wolfed so I'm not a mess when there aren't any Aurum visitors, the tech drop took some getting used to but I'm all right."

[prima_sequentem]

"Maybe I'll get a job offer from my imperial daughter-in-law," Granny muses.

"Employment by Bells seems to be the going thing," says Slipstick. "Maybe I should look into it, since my last big plan didn't pan out."

[her_imperial_radiance]

"What was your last plan?" Elspeth asks Slipstick. "And Grandma, I'm sure Mama'll offer you a job and just didn't want to overwhelm you."

[prima_sequentem]

"I married an unpleasant person. He died," says Slipstick.

Granny snorts.

[her_imperial_radiance]

"That's a plan?" asks Elspeth quizzically.

[prima_sequentem]

"It was going to be," says Slipstick. "But, again: he died."

[her_imperial_radiance]

"But couldn't you get him back, now that Mama and her alts have taken over the afterlife?"

[prima_sequentem]

"From what I know," says Slipstick, "I don't think they'd let him out."

[her_imperial_radiance]

"Oh. So very unpleasant, then."

[dont_look_back]

"I wonder if I should be vaguely dismayed," says Orfeo.

[prima_sequentem]

"He was nothing I couldn't handle," says Slipstick.

[her_imperial_radiance]

"Well, there are eight Bells and only three have Libbies employed or about to be so, so you'll have choices," says Elspeth to Slipstick, "if that looks like next for you."

[prima_sequentem]

"Can you tell me anything about the rest?" inquires Slipstick. "My information isn't exactly complete."

[her_imperial_radiance]

"Sure. Besides Mama and Stella and Juliet, there's Shell Bell, who's already taken over Atlantis and was the one to discover Downside by getting assassinated. There's Amariah, who's a witch and lives in Alethia which is the only world we know about that isn't attached to Downside now and everybody there has an external usually-animal-shaped soul and it's contagious if you go there so that's something to consider, and she has an artifact that dispenses objective truth but only within Alethia, and she hasn't taken over yet. Angela hasn't taken over either, because she lives in a theocracy and even though it turns out the god is a spaceship and not a real god she's waiting for the last Archangel to finish out his term - that's her, up on stage, with the other angel, I think they're going to sing! And there's Aegis who's from the future, maybe not as far as Angela but we're not quite sure about Angela's history, and she's younger than all the others and she's an admiral and she got a hostile alien species to surrender and last I heard she was going to see about getting democratically elected to be something called Hegemon. And there's Pattern who is called that because she has no distinguishing features yet."