i believe i can fly

[self_composed]

Alice eventually goes home for the evening.

Bella goes up and sits in her room.

She has five hexes.

Five.

That's rather a lot of hexes.

She gets out her notebook, with the lists, and she makes some wishes.

And then she goes to bed, grinning.

In the morning it will be time to make plans.

Comments

[edgeofyourseat]

[I really don't get you,] Alice concludes. Well, okay, that's not news. And he loves her for surprising him, even unpleasantly.

[self_composed]

[There exists a division between "sex things" and "not sex things", and torturing you by any mechanism would count as the first, and would require an exceptional reason to get me to do it despite being in a not-sex-things-doing relationship with you,] Bella says. [The division isn't completely sharp, and you in particular mess with it a lot, but that case is clear to me.]

[edgeofyourseat]

He turns that one over in his head a few times.

It surprises him how much he misses the possibility. Way more than he misses the possibility of having any kind of actual sex with her, which is also something he would like very much if she ever felt like it, but isn't really something he spends much time thinking about. He is getting very, very wistful about the torture in a way he rarely ever gets about anything.

But Bella doesn't, in fact, feel like it. So that's that.

Alice shrugs.

[Oh—it'd probably be the best way to get fast coins, if we ever needed 'em,] he adds as an afterthought. Maybe later he'll burn a hex giving himself such a power and then see if using it on himself works for making coins with.

[self_composed]

That one is slightly motivating to Bella. Emergency coin generation, without equipment, without an extra preparatory step. And yet. [It'd be an awfully specific kind of emergency, where I don't have the coins I need and can best address the problem by having you generate some. We'd have to both be in the same place looking at the same problem, I'd have to be running around without any hexes, we don't have enough time to set up anything else even by making squares biting our cheeks and conjuring you a knife or something but we have enough time for me to explain what to do with the coins or transfer them from you to me - I don't think it's a sensible emergency plan.]

Pause.

[It might be useful for sheer volume, though.] If she's planning to take over the entire world, she will need to do a lot of stuff...

Pause, pause.

[Okay. Let's experiment and see if getting around the bootstrapping restriction by having someone else make the ouch-wish even works. If it does, I will consider hexing up a power for it.]

[edgeofyourseat]

[Okay,] says Alice. [You wanna wish me hurt, or...?] It could go either way, really.

[self_composed]

[Yeah. I'm not sure if this is positive sum so I'll start with a square in case a coin can only do enough to make a smaller coin - and I don't know how much this is gonna hurt.] She finds a ninety-degree corner on her necklace, debates how exactly to do this, and finally just wishes upon him plain unadulterated pain in whatever quantity squares can generate.

And she supervises, curious.

[edgeofyourseat]

...He bites his lip, lightly. It is a tiny bit uncomfortable to know that Bella won't like him getting off on this, but mostly it is really, really nice to feel that and know where it came from. A sharp little all-over sting, there and gone; he isn't surprised when he touches the new coin and finds a square.

[So, that worked.]

And now he is kind of a lot more turned on than he just was. Well, it's not like they didn't expect that. He tries not to dwell on it too much, in case she stops reading him again.

[self_composed]

She doesn't stop reading him, but she's not directly looking at him anymore.

[Good to know. Anti-bootstrapping restriction only works on people who work alone.]

[edgeofyourseat]

[Maybe that's another reason why nobody else has—]

—taken over the world. If other coinmakers are all solitary types. Why is she not directly looking at him?

[self_composed]

She turns her head back in his direction. She's sort of looking at his chin, though. [Maybe. I still haven't read all the profiles. But Elias had - and expected to have - descendants. He had a family. I'm still confused.]

[edgeofyourseat]

Still thinking more about Bella's line of sight than her long-dead ancestor, he answers, [Maybe he didn't know anybody he wanted to hurt.] Either because they got off on it or because they didn't, but probably the second one. And likewise for not knowing anybody who wanted to hurt him.

[self_composed]

[I guess.] She shuts her eyes altogether. [The book doesn't say anything about his family, which is kind of weird. Maybe I should do that genealogy project as soon as I can visibly leave the house.]

[edgeofyourseat]

Bella is acting really weird.

Well, she can tell he's noticed, so if she wanted him to know why, she'd say. He shrugs and lets it go.

[Maybe he hated all his kids,] he speculates, smiling. [Or they hated him. Or both. But he still wanted to pass it down to somebody in the family.]

This line of reasoning makes perfect sense to a Hammond!

[self_composed]

[That could be. He lived long enough ago that if he had, like, an estranged wife but he liked his kids, she probably did not get custody, so that's probably not it.]

[edgeofyourseat]

[Yeah, I bet not.]

[self_composed]

The oven timer dings.

Bella gets up and puts on oven mitts and pulls it out. [Charlie'll be home in about fifteen minutes, by which time the pie'll be cool enough to eat. And then after dinner we have a difficult conversation with him.]

[edgeofyourseat]

[Sounds good to me,] Alice says wryly; it sounds good only in the sense that it is likely to lead to solving a problem. Actually having the conversation is unlikely to be fun.

On the other hand, fuck it, he has an underground lair now.

[self_composed]

[It's a pretty good lair, if I do say so myself,] Bella agrees. She turns off the oven and starts setting the table.

[edgeofyourseat]

Ooh, it's fun when she answers his thoughts like he said them out loud! Alice indulges in fuzzy feelings for a bit, and then wonders if she wants any help.

[self_composed]

[You can get the forks and napkins,] Bella suggests, laughing softly.

[edgeofyourseat]

Happily, he does.

[self_composed]

Charlie arrives as Bella's putting ice in the water pitcher. He sniffs the air appreciatively. "Pot pie, Bells?" He looks at Alice, unsurprised, unthrilled, unreactive. "Laney," he acknowledges.

"Yep, pot pie," Bella not-quite-sings, filling the pitcher with water and plunking it on the table.

[edgeofyourseat]

Alice grins.

Are they inappropriately cheerful for the subject they will later be raising? Well, not like he cares. Pie!

[self_composed]

The pot pie is gravyish on the bottom and biscuity on the top.

Ohhhh, it is good.

Bella sighs as she noms it, blissful.

[edgeofyourseat]

It is good. On the border of sexually so, in fact. Alice noms pie, and smiles, and loves Bella.