plotting to unnerve her

[self_composed]

Bella finds Milliways in the moon palace instead of one of her balconies.

"Huh," she says aloud.

Then, to Alice, Libby, Elena, and Mary, and Lazarus except he autoreplies with a busy message, [Hey folks, Moonstone Palace grew a bar that I don't remember putting in, come check it out.]

Comments

[her_imperial_radiance]

"I didn't," mutters Edward.

[self_composed]

"The first name on his licitly obtained birth certificate reads 'Frederick'," Bella lies. "If Allirea ever attempts to ever call him that, I imagine he'll be motivated to set her on fire, but that's a moot point, as I don't plan to bring him to this world again. Now I'm going to see what I can do to calm him down and then I'll come back, alone, and we can talk about my bag of futuristic technology and your wishes. Okay?"

[her_imperial_radiance]

"Okay," replies Golden Bella, as Allirea fades away again and Edward and all the spectators lose track of what they were talking about.

[self_composed]

"Back later," says Starry Bella, and she too teleports to the moon.

[I lied to them,] she tells him through the fire. [Act pissed off if anyone calls you Frederick.]

[edgeofyourseat]

[I love you,] he says, curling up in the middle of his cozy little inferno. And he does, and he is happy and relieved and amused and admiring, but those things have to fight for space in his head with fear and horror and anger and the pain he is using to distract himself. (It doesn't work as well as usual.)

[self_composed]

[Snuggles?] she offers, holding out her arms and sitting on the moondust.

[edgeofyourseat]

He puts out the fire and flings himself into her lap.

Air is also handy for crying.

[self_composed]

He gets the tightest of hugs.

[edgeofyourseat]

He loves her so very much.

[self_composed]

"We can get your name legally changed," she says, running her fingers repetitively through his hair. "To whatever you like. I declare it legally not what it was on Mars, anyway, but we can get it changed in America. First thing when we get home."

[edgeofyourseat]

He is too busy sniffling into her shoulder to say it out loud, but the first thing that comes to mind is Alice Whistle Swan.

[self_composed]

She kisses the crown of his head. "That's adorable. Alice Whistle Swan it is."

[edgeofyourseat]

Awwwww.

He snuggles a tiny bit closer and loves her some more. The emotional hurricane is definitely winding down.

[self_composed]

"A whistle swan sounds like it's a species of bird," Bella murmurs. "You could be the star of a series of children's books. Alice Whistle Swan Goes to the Library. Alice Whistle Swan Gets Caught in the Rain. Alice Whistle Swan Visits the Moon."

[edgeofyourseat]

He giggles softly.

[self_composed]

Bella kisses his hair again and hugs him and waits.

[edgeofyourseat]

Alice curls up in her lap, which should be impossible considering how much taller he is, but he manages it anyway. As an afterthought, he conjures himself a snuggly blanket, because it is cold up here when you're not on fire.

He's okay now. More or less. No longer desperate to destroy things, anyway.

[self_composed]

"Thank you for not destroying anything in front of the other Bella in her not-technically-a-throne-room, by the way."

[edgeofyourseat]

"Seemed like a bad idea," he says, although that might be overstating the complexity of his train of thought at the time.

[self_composed]

She kisses his hair. "So," she says, "I did not think the Emperor had a chance to catch your original name. I can read your mind too and I didn't see it go by. But if he had, I couldn't have risked lying to them. And I wasn't sure what I would do if I bluffed him, told him he could go ahead and say, and got the actual name out of his mouth. I could've tried to avoid ever telling you about it - I don't plan to bring you back here - or I could've lied to you instead or I could've waited for you to calm down and explained what happened. Which of those would've been preferable, given that the risk was small but needed taking?"

[edgeofyourseat]

The thought of her lying to him about it makes him feel... icky. That's a no.

Alice never visiting this world again is a pretty good solution to the name thing in general, as long as the hypothetical Edward who hypothetically heard it didn't go telling other people that might eventually visit their world because then he would have to deal with them and ugh.

"Last one," he says. Because while the way it feels to have someone demand his name like that is horrible, and having them actually manage to dig it out of him would be even worse, he would rather have that feeling than somebody going around thinking of him by that fucking name and him not even knowing about it.

[self_composed]

"That's what I probably would have gone with," she agrees. "I don't think the Emperor had any reason to spread the name farther than that room, and everyone in the room except for you, me, Allirea, and Bella would've presently determined the whole thing unimportant as soon as she faded - it's disconcerting how she works, actually, but it would've prevented too much spread."

[edgeofyourseat]

"Well, that's better, I guess."

Okay, he's done thinking about this. Snuggle time.

[self_composed]

Bella obliges.

After about an hour, she extricates herself to go make the exchange of futuristic swag and maybe-useful postdictions for wishes regarding thirst and turning pain. She doesn't want to be caught leaving someone holding Milliways open without having done this.

(She is careful to specify world when she expends a star on turning pain.)

[her_imperial_radiance]

Meanwhile, wolves are lining up outside the guest house Mary is using. Some other wolves are on the phone, getting ahold of their imprintable friends in the stationary branch of the pack and the girls' packs so they can try this over the less-effective telephone method.

First in line is Bartholomew Norton!