i'm just that fascinating i guess

[self_composed]

The first day Bella spends out and about with her new who's-watching-me powers, she is rather alarmed.

Maybe she's just mistaken about how much time people spend looking at reasonably pretty eighteen-year-old girls. She kills a pentagon to try it on a nearby control - who's looking at that girl over there?

Fewer people. Fewer people are looking at that random girl, and less intently. They're looking at her familiarly - they know her - or casually - they're checking her out.

[I have a spy problem,] Bella says. She makes a faintly exaggerated show of snapping her fingers in frustration and turning around. She's going back to her room to get a mirror and bobby pins and barettes, so she can spy back on the pretense of checking her hair, without making it overwhelmingly obvious that she knows what's going on.

Comments

[nonbird]

[You're flying!] says Lazarus, delightedly.

[self_composed]

[I am! That's just about the first thing I did once I had a good hex supply,] laughs Bella, landing on the fifth landing. [Here I am at your door. Can I come in?]

[nonbird]

[Yes you can!] he says, and opens the door.

"I suppose at the point where I'm letting an invisible person into my apartment I can stop trying not to act weird," he adds out loud. "Hello."

[self_composed]

Bella giggles and floats in and inspects the place.

[nonbird]

Lazarus laughs and shuts the door and inspects Bella.

The apartment is small and moderately cluttered, mainly with loose books. Some of them are on furniture; others are being used as furniture. The couch has two free cushions and one pile of mixed fiction and non-. There is a bookshelf, but it is over capacity and then some.

[self_composed]

Bella de-invisibles as she skims his book titles. "You," she diagnoses, "are a reader. Or Kolya is. But given this quantity I'm going to guess both."

[nonbird]

He laughs again.

"Correct!" he says, perching on the arm of the couch in a clearly familiar posture. "That stack of powers you have there is fascinating. It's hard to look away. What did you say your coins were? Red and glowy? Can I see one?"

[self_composed]

Bella nips the edge of her lip and appears the triangle in her hand instead of on her bandolier; she throws it to him. She could square some off the chain but that seems excessive when he didn't even specify a size. "Behold."

[nonbird]

"That's fascinating," he says, closing his hand around it, studying the glow.

Then: "You don't happen to be wearing a few hundred more, do you? That aren't yours?"

[self_composed]

"My boyfriend makes most of 'em," Bella nods. "And there are a few that I just found."

[nonbird]

"Well, I can definitely see them," he says. "If I look just the right way, the variance in number of sides is as clear as day."

[self_composed]

"Interesting. Can you just tell that they're there or could you tell me exactly how I've got them arranged and everything?"

[nonbird]

"At this range? I can see them as clearly as I see someone with a power standing behind me," he says. "Location and shape. So yes, I can tell how you have them arranged."

[self_composed]

Bella grins and helps herself to a chair. "So, here's a cooperative mint. Anything else you'd like to see done?"

[nonbird]

"My mind is suddenly blank," he says mournfully.

[self_composed]

"Well, I have a question - did it look like anything special when I made you that triangle?"

[nonbird]

"I think so," he says. "It was hard to tell, with all the—" he waves a hand vaguely in her direction "—noise."

[self_composed]

"Perhaps you'll get used to it and be able to pick out more detail," Bella says encouragingly. "What do you think you saw?"

[nonbird]

He shakes his head. "I couldn't begin to say. Maybe if I saw it a few more times?"

[self_composed]

Bella digs her thumbnail into her opposite arm in a neat little pattern from elbow to wristbone. "I did say you could have a bagful." She pours a dozen triangles into his hands.

[nonbird]

"That's a little bit disconcerting," he observes. "But yes, something definitely happens when you make them. I can sort it out from the noise now, but I'm not any closer to describing it coherently."

[self_composed]

"Perhaps you could describe it incoherently," Bella says. Aikido's useful; she finds a nerve in her wrist and digs a knuckle into it. Square. She flicks it at him.

[nonbird]

"...That was... different," he says, freeing a hand from the pile of triangles to catch the incoming square. "And even more disconcerting."

[self_composed]

"I'll save the more-disconcerting-still demos for the boyfriend," Bella says. "I am not him. I could be relevantly similar," she pokes a pentagon, "but frankly it does not interest me to become so."

[nonbird]

"Understandable," says Lazarus.