a city and a mint who sleep very little between them

[self_composed]

Bella bikes to the airport on Friday. She gets a little reading done on her flight, then sleeps-on-purpose through the remainder of the trip, waking up precisely when the plane touches down. One nice bonus that she didn't even explicitly build into the power is that she can sleep at will in virtually any position; she doesn't have to get comfy if that's not convenient.

She steps off the plane, backpack full of her things over her shoulders, and stalks into the halls of LaGuardia, eyes peeled for Libby.

Comments

[prima_sequentem]

"Noted."

[self_composed]

"To what extent do I still need to be concerned about you spying on me and my friend - or trying?" Bella inquires.

[prima_sequentem]

"If I said 'not at all', would you believe me?"

[self_composed]

"I would not equate your words with the whistling of the wind," Bella says. "But I wouldn't take it on faith that you were telling me the absolute truth either. It'd be some information, but certainly no guarantee."

[prima_sequentem]

"My previous reason for spying on you was to determine how dangerous you are," she says. "I don't have a new one."

[self_composed]

"See, that's even better than just telling me 'no'," Bella says. "Especially since you conspicuously didn't mention whether you have a reason to spy on my friend."

[prima_sequentem]

"Is your friend dangerous?"

[self_composed]

"So long as I am around," Bella says, "no. And I have no plans to stop being around."

[prima_sequentem]

"Then I don't need to spy on them, do I?"

[self_composed]

"Only if you believe me, and I'm not sure you do. You've expressed a lack of confidence in my skill as a judge of character."

[prima_sequentem]

"True. Maybe I should meet your friend and see for myself."

[self_composed]

"No," says Bella pleasantly.

[prima_sequentem]

"Why not?"

[self_composed]

"I don't think you'd get along particularly well."

[prima_sequentem]

"See, that worries me."

[self_composed]

"I get along with my friend swimmingly. I would not be friends with anyone who I expected to blow up the world," Bella reiterates.

[prima_sequentem]

"So why don't you think I would get along with your friend?"

[self_composed]

"Let's give my friend a code name and flip a coin to pick a gender, as this is tedious," Bella suggests. "How about Whistle. Bells and whistles, yes?" She digs a dime out of her purse. "Heads, Whistle is a guy - tails - All right then. Whistle's apparently a girl for this purpose. And she does have other characteristics besides being practically unlikely to blow up the world, you understand."

[prima_sequentem]

Libby looks mildly amused.

"And what are some of those characteristics?"

[self_composed]

"Her aversion to blowing up the world is not intrinsic," Bella says. "And I have reasons you don't, to trust it to stay put anyway. And it is out of the question to duplicate those reasons for you."

[I got tired of referring to you as a genderless nameless "my friend" to Libby, so I flipped a coin in front of her to pick an uninformative gender - you're a girl for this purpose - and named you "Whistle", as in "bells and whistles",] Bella informs Alice.

[prima_sequentem]

"I see. Those reasons being, what, the closeness of your friendship? Or some personal judgment of character that you don't think I'll trust? Because you don't think I'd understand it, or because it's flimsy?"

[edgeofyourseat]

Alice, predictably, finds this hilarious and delightful.

[self_composed]

[I thought you'd like that.]

"Trade you for how you came to believe stars dangerous," Bella suggests.

[prima_sequentem]

"I trusted the person who told me so. Both to be telling to truth and to know what they were doing. Your turn."

[self_composed]

"That's not what I meant and you know it. But as a gesture of good faith: your guesses are wrong," Bella says testily.