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]

"Have it display any magic that's hiding something as an exclamation mark on a stick," Libby suggests, "and anything that doesn't make sense, such as someone who isn't magical but isn't not magical either, as a question mark likewise."

[self_composed]

"I like it. And maybe little gems where there's coin-operated artifacts, like my motorcycle or this globe. And little boxes where there's anything disobeying the laws of physics but 'none of the above'. Sound like a plan?"

[prima_sequentem]

"I think it does," says Libby.

[nonbird]

"Sure," says Lazarus, thoughtfully.

[self_composed]

"Let's see if a hex can cover this," Bella says, cracking her knuckles.

The hex goes. The globe lights up like an ornamented Christmas tree.

"And one for oomph."

Oomph.

[nonbird]

"Pretty," Lazarus opines.

[prima_sequentem]

"And very convenient," says Libby.

[self_composed]

"Very both," says Bella, beholding the spinning globe hungrily.

[prima_sequentem]

"I can check on the globe from any angle and review its history anytime I want," says Libby. "You might want to do something similar."

[self_composed]

Bella writes herself root access to the globe with an unnecessary wave of her hand. "Alrighty! Now. My to-do list looks like: catalogue and assess everything marked on the globe, work out an order of operations and publicity level for world takeover, sift through your minions if you'll let me to find useful staff because ruling the world is bound to have scaling problems if one person's doing everything serially even if they think as fast as I do and it turns out I can bump it up a few more times, establish invisible moonbase capital city from which to rule because this will make it inconvenient for nonmagical folks to object to me and cut collateral damage if they decide to do it anyway, go ahead and grant myself permanent teleportation power instead of doing it per-case - I'll just do that one now since I already designed one, poof! - and arrange star versions of the defensive arrays for me and my pet masochist. Am I missing anything?"

[nonbird]

"I don't think so," says Lazarus.

[prima_sequentem]

"I wouldn't mind being introduced to Whistle if you can fit that into your itinerary," says Libby. "And I'd be happy to recommend some people to help you rule the world."

[self_composed]

Bella scrutinizes Libby. "We are clear that Whistle is mine, Whistle's various weirdnesses are my responsibility and otherwise to be tolerated, etcetera etcetera?"

[prima_sequentem]

"...Ye-es? That doesn't sound promising."

[self_composed]

Bella shrugs. "You'll see. Meet here or meet elsewhere?"

[prima_sequentem]

"Elsewhere, I think. It's getting kind of cozy in here already."

[self_composed]

"All right. Lazarus, you want to go home, or can I talk you into sticking around and staring at the pretty globe while it spins and shows you flags, and brainphoning me when you're done?"

[nonbird]

"Why don't you give me the look-at-it-whenever-I-want thing?" he suggests.

[self_composed]

"Sure." She pokes him in the forehead, also unnecessarily. "You may look at the pretty globe at any time."

[nonbird]

He giggles.

"In that case I would like to go home now, please."

[self_composed]

"Bye!" says Bella, and she obligingly sends him away.

She turns to Libby. "Bring Whistle to your turf, bring you to Stanford and meet there, or design my moon palace and meet there?"

[prima_sequentem]

"Definitely the moon palace," says Libby.

[self_composed]

"All right. Let's see how much I can overclock my brain, I only go up to times-six right now."

Hex goes, next hex does not go, Bella wants to think about it more before investing a star in speeding her head up in case she might catch her brain on fire or something. She closes her eyes and thinks up a moon palace. It has ambient air-lighting like Alice's lair, and a magic door down to same. It defends against the harmful parts of sunshine since there's not an atmosphere on top of it to help. She can put in furniture later, except the meeting room is going to start with a conference table and springy chairs so she and Libby and Alice and whoever else gets brought in have a place to talk.

It's invisible to everyone not on the whitelist, and all manner of scientific instruments are doomed to ignorance of it. It has a surprising number of open balconies for a palace on the moon, but they and the environs as well as the interior are covered by air circulation magic again similar to the lair. (Bella does not need to breathe; this does not mean she doesn't like being able to hear and speak.)

She leaves the gravity alone. 'Cause that's half the point of being on the moon, right? This may, on inspection, turn out to require a revision of the conference chairs, but that's no big deal.

Plumbing works by magic, she puts in a kitchen for recreational cheffery and it also works by magic, and the entire thing is made of gray-white marble and abstract stained glass in tastefully muted-pearly colors, with similarly pearly tiles. It has a vaguely cathedralish shape to it; it looks more like a goddess's palace than a queen's. Bella decides she is okay with that.

Fixing the design in her mind and double-checking the whole thing, Bella spends the hex. It's not that much more complicated than the lair was, just bigger, and not bigger by enough to be a problem.

[Yoink,] she warns Alice, but she thinks he'll like the surprise. "Here goes," she notifies Libby, and they all three land in her conference room.

[prima_sequentem]

"Well, hello," says Libby, about three-quarters to the room and one-quarter to the person who is presumably Whistle.

[edgeofyourseat]

Alice bounces a little, looks around, flashes a friendly grin at Libby just because, and then puts his hands on his hips and looks at Bella.

"Am I on the moon?" he demands.