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

[autokinetic]

[...You have fun, I need to think.]

[dark_light]

[I'll have a nice informed review along in a bit,] Amariah says.

[autokinetic]

[Thanks, I think.]

[pythbox]

Sue giggles, and drops the call, and hugs Amariah.

[dark_light]

Amariah hugs him back.

Path moves to a part of the room that's out of the way and hoots at Ivy.

[pythbox]

Ivy becomes an angel, and goes to Path, and hugs him and pets him and kisses his fluffy feathers.

[dark_light]

Amariah takes him for a test drive.

[Highly recommended,] she tells Aegis, with Sue conferenced in, when all is done. And then she pulls herself out of the call, collects Path into herself again, and wanders back into the main chamber.

[autokinetic]

[Huh,] Aegis says, now speaking only to Ivy and Sue.

[pythbox]

[So, you do your thinking yet?]

[autokinetic]

[Some of it. I know I told you not to flirt with me back when I was thirteen, but you could've just told me straight out, you know. I didn't like it because I was thirteen and I thought it was part of Unhealthy Sue Behavior.]

[pythbox]

[I guess it was a little. But I liked you, too. I like you now. I love you.]

[autokinetic]

[You're my best friend and I love you and I've thought you were not-potentially-dateable for a long time now,] Aegis sighs.

[pythbox]

[I still don't get that,] he says. [But maybe it's just that I don't even know what me being gay would be like.]

[autokinetic]

[Link me up, it's higher bandwidth. I'm not gay but I can push you what it's like to only like boys.]

[pythbox]

He links her up.

[autokinetic]

She pushes.

Girls just aren't labeled in her head as potential partners. Maybe not in the same sense that, say, chairs are - chairs are not people, among other important differences between them and girls - but in about the same sense that children or - or buggers aren't.

[pythbox]

That is really weird. Even knowing what it is like, Sue still can't envision it for himself.

He pushes back the complete picture of how he feels about Aegis.



He is definitely not gay.

[autokinetic]

...ooh.

Aegis is not gay either!

[pythbox]

Yes, she just said.

[autokinetic]

If you'd pushed that at me while you were, like, next to me, I probably would've kissed you, Aegis observes. But you're in the orgy chamber and I don't think I wanna be in an orgy chamber.

[pythbox]

I'm not in the main part! he says, laughing. Ama went back out, there's nobody in here but me.

[autokinetic]

I still have mixed feelings about entering an orgy chamber, though!

[pythbox]

It's just a room with a big comfy bed and a buncha pillows, he shrugs.

[autokinetic]

Nobody's likely to come in and start orgy-ing?

[pythbox]

He giggles.

Not if we close the door!