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]

[No, it's self-evident that magic bikes are awesome,] he assures her. [I'm not sure exactly; it's just something about the way you said it.]

[self_composed]

[It's not going to be some kind of problem that I was born eighteen years ago, I hope.]

[nonbird]

[It makes me slightly warier about joining your shadowy conspiracy,] he says, [but not very much warier. And it seems to be the best shadowy conspiracy on offer.]

[self_composed]

[Well,] Bella said. [If I were older, I hope you'd expect me to have made commensurate progress in the shadowy conspiracy department? I'd be very skeptical of someone who was thirty, had ambitions to take over the world, and hadn't made any noticeable progress yet. I can at least claim to have gotten out of high school early, discovered a magical network, begun to poach it, and made inroads into various circles full of people with various forms of power who could be helpful or inconvenient depending. At age eighteen.]

[nonbird]

[I also don't know how long you've wanted to take over the world for,] Lazarus points out.

[self_composed]

[Well, I've been talking about it since I was ten, but I was going to go a more leisurely route before minting got dumped in my lap this past February.]

[nonbird]

[Dare I ask why you wanted to in the first place?]

[self_composed]

[Because it is not being operated suitably,] Bella says. [Did I not cover that? Even without magic, a lot of the problems might have been soluble. You don't see people coming down with smallpox anymore; average wealth keeps going up; we have made limited but nonzero progress on going into space - I would've just pushed on things that needed pushing.]

[nonbird]

[You are slightly unnerving,] Lazarus observes. [But in a good way.]

[self_composed]

[I don't think I've been called unnerving before,] Bella muses. [How goes door location hunting?]

[nonbird]

[I think I found something, actually,] he says. [There's a kind of... weird hallway quirk... on the ground floor of my building near the stairwell. It's hard to look into but easy to get out of. Would that work?]

[self_composed]

[Is there only one such place?] Bella says, getting up to head for the unobtrusive stairwell in her own building. [Also, is Kolya home? I presume I'll be lit up like a billboard to you even if I arrive invisible, but I'm still not down with the "unobtrusiveness" thing.]

[nonbird]

[I'm not sure, but I think he's out,] says Lazarus. [I could go home and ask if he's there, if you're nervous about encountering him in the hallway.]

[self_composed]

[Assuming he'll reliably reply to the question, please do.] Bella makes the door anyway. [Say when.]

[nonbird]

[...You just made a magic door,] he observes.

[self_composed]

[Yup! Can you see me through it?] Bella inquires.

[nonbird]

[Extremely,] says Lazarus. He stares for a moment longer at the visually unremarkable location of invisible Bella on the other side of the door, then looks away. [For that matter, I can see the door. It's kind of... cute? And you're a little overwhelming, to be honest. The stack of powers is very analogous-to-bright. Oh, and you've got a native one under there, that's nice. Did you mention that? I forget.]

[self_composed]

[I didn't mention it, but an addon failed for redundancy once,] said Bella. [So I figured.]

[nonbird]

[What was the...? Oh, never mind, I see. That's elegant,] he says, smiling at an anonymous non-portal patch of wall.

[self_composed]

[Beg pardon? I don't think you ought to be able to see an addon that failed for redudnancy; what are you looking at?]

[nonbird]

[Your power—the native one. It's very, hmm, self-contained, which I guess is appropriate.]

[self_composed]

[Self-contained?] prompts Bella.

[nonbird]

[Yeah! Why am I standing here rambling, I can ramble while I go look for Kolya,] he says, turning and heading for the stairs. [Anyways. Your power. You know what it does, don't you?]

[self_composed]

[The thing that failed for redundancy was a mental defense against spying and tampering,] Bella says. [That's the only way I know it exists at all; it doesn't make itself otherwise known to me, so I don't have much detail.]

[nonbird]

[Well, it's very pretty,] says Lazarus. [Almost floral. And it's not inward or outward; I'd call it, hmm, exact. A defined boundary between your mind and the rest of the world. The farther away from that door I get, the weirder it is to look through it.]