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

[colorshapes]

"Ooh, flying, I wanna fly, where's Mummy, she'll turn me into a bird I bet," says Kerron, bouncing up and down on Nathan's shoulders.

[lookingforwardtoit]

"She's busy," says Eights.

[colorshapes]

"But I want her! I wanna turn into a bird."

[temporal_affairs]

"I have some coins, kiddo, I can turn you into a bird," snorts Nathan. "What kinda bird?"

[colorshapes]

"A flying kind! A - a hawk. A blue hawk!"

And presently he is a blue hawk, and he laughs and starts teaching himself to fly rather ably.

[lookingforwardtoit]

Eights giggles.

[temporal_affairs]

"So that's my kid," Nathan says. "It has now been much less time since you have seen a child."

[lookingforwardtoit]

She cracks up.

[temporal_affairs]

"Rumor has it," observes Nathan, "that you want to get bit again. Isn't the vampire one of the Joker in there? Did he not oblige this interest?"

[lookingforwardtoit]

"Sure he did," she says cheerfully. "But it's not like wanting him to bite me and wanting you to bite me are mutually exclusive."

[temporal_affairs]

"True. Kerron's sleep cycle will probably figure it's time for him to crash for the night in spite of this being Mars on another world at some point in the near future, shall I find you thenabouts?"

[lookingforwardtoit]

"Sounds like a plan," says Eights.

[temporal_affairs]

"Alrighty then."

[colorshapes]

"WATCH MEEEEE, DADDY," Kerron hollers, figuring out how to dive and pull up from said dive at the last moment halfway across the pavilion.

[temporal_affairs]

"It is apparently not right this minute," laughs Nathan quietly. "That's wonderful, kiddo!" he calls to his son.

[lookingforwardtoit]

Eights giggles and pats Nate on the shoulder.

[colorshapes]

It is some fifteen minutes later when Kerron divebombs his father, sits on his shoulder, and starts snoring loudly.

[temporal_affairs]

Nathan peers at him for a moment, then gets a square out of the coin bowls, conjures a perch, and transfers hawk-Kerron thereto.

He winks at Eights.

[lookingforwardtoit]

"You know," she remarks, tipping her head at the door to the orgy chamber, "it occurs to me that you'd be pretty popular in there."

[temporal_affairs]

"D'you think so? I'm not as friendly to the general population since I got vampired up again. Only so much editing the theoretically uneditable mate bond would take. I am happy to bite pretty much arbitrary people, though."

[lookingforwardtoit]

"Well, how do you feel about being cuddlemobbed by alts of your mate?"

[temporal_affairs]

"I think the extant data we have on alts of mates is that the Emperor finds them disturbing and Alice is Alice. Oh, and other Alice appears to find hers perfectly unalarming and Orfeo has no special reaction to alts of his imprint insofar as that's data. I suppose I may as well see where I fall on the apparent spectrum."

[lookingforwardtoit]

"I'm sure Jokes can keep them off you if you turn out not to approve," she says, patting him on the arm. "C'mon."

[temporal_affairs]

Now, wait just a split second -

Is this a good time to visit the heap of Jokers?

[lookingforwardtoit]

Yes it is!