self_composed | it's a dead man's party

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

dark_light

Amariah doesn't interrupt kissing Ghosty to indicate this, but she listens curiously.

From:

nonbird

"Um," says Lazarus. "Well. Yes."

From:

dark_light

"Ooh," says Amariah between kisses. "See, I couldn't tell."

From:

nonbird

"I wasn't really advertising it!" he says, grinning a little.

From:

yourheartstrings

"I figured it out," Queenie says smugly.

From:

dark_light

"You're very perceptive," Amariah tells Queenie. She kisses the end of Ghosty's nose and adjusts her position to peer invitingly at Lazarus, one hand extended in his direction.

From:

gunpowdergelatine

Ghosty giggles.

From:

nonbird

Lazarus blushes some more.

Then he takes Amariah's hand, and wriggles a little closer in the pile.

From:

dark_light

He gets a kiss for his trouble!

From:

nonbird

He kisses back. Shyly, but with definite enjoyment.

From:

dark_light

Awww, shy kisses, that's cute. Amariah's kisses are not shy but they are also enjoying!

From:

nonbird

Kisses kisses!

There is definitely something to this cuddlepile business. Kisses are extra fun when they happen in a pile of cuddles. This he is discovering.

From:

dark_light

Amariah is so pleased to have had the opportunity to enlighten him!

From:

nonbird

"So," he says slowly, after some amount of kisses, "wait, are you - are you test-driving me for Stella, or something?"

From:

dark_light

"Uh, she didn't ask me to, and if you don't want me to recommend you to her later I won't," Amariah blinks.

From:

nonbird

"Well... I don't really know," he says. "It just occurred to me that you asked me if she hits on me and calls me cute and things."

From:

dark_light

"I did ask that. I wanted to know, is why," Amariah says. (Kiss.) "Because you are cute and worth hitting on and she's the one of us who has non-party-related reasons to encounter you."

From:

nonbird

"Well," he says, "I guess you can ask her why she doesn't. And then at least one and possibly both of us will find out."

From:

dark_light

"I dunno, have you got a significant other who is not known to approve of you kissing Bells?" Pause. "Or who actually doesn't approve of you kissing Bells, in which case we should stop."

From:

nonbird

"I have a, um... no one matching that description is going to disapprove of me kissing Bells," he says.

From:

dark_light

"But does Stella know that? Or does she just know that you have an um whose lack of disapproval is an unknown quantity?"

From:

nonbird

"...I suppose she does know," he says. "About the um."

From:

dark_light

"Goddesses all you're cute." He gets a kiss. "Do you want her, because I totally can go recommend you to her, it wouldn't even be my first, what'd you call it, test drive."