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

[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!

[prima_sequentem]

Mary feels weirdly like she is holding court. This is exactly what she doesn't want to be doing with her life, but it's helpful and it's going to be over soon. She can handle it.

Especially with Libby there for moral support.

"Hi," she says. "Let me see... is there anywhere in particular you're planning on going anytime soon?"

[her_imperial_radiance]

"Well," says Bartholomew, "we're moving the pack to the Lapis capital in a few weeks, so I'm going there. I go into town sometimes wherever we're living, to run errands or see performances or go to the zoo or whatever. I don't have, like, a calendar on me..."

[prima_sequentem]

"That's okay," says Mary. "Hmm." She chews absent-mindedly on her lower lip. "No prospects either way before the move... ooh, don't go out at night in the first week there, there's something you'll want to see but somebody's going to be there who you really don't want to meet... nothing in the next week, or—huh." Chewchewchew. "Actually, is there a calendar handy? This'll probably be easier if I can pinpoint days."

[her_imperial_radiance]

Someone fetches her a wall calendar and points out the date; it's currently February 8.

[prima_sequentem]

"Okay. Great." She runs her finger over the page until she reaches the end of February, pauses, then flips to March and keeps going. March yields a slight hesitation around the 16th, but then she shakes her head and moves on. April, May, and June pass without comment. On the first of July, she says, "Stay at home then too."

Finally she stops in late August.

"There's a wildly slim chance you'll meet somebody very, very good for you," she says. "Sometime in this week... likeliest on Wednesday. Any ideas what you might be up to?"

[her_imperial_radiance]

"...No? That's probably just going to be a normal day," Bartholomew says, writing down when he should stay put.

[prima_sequentem]

"Really? Maybe it doesn't depend on you..." Chewchewchew. "No, it does. You're going to get the chance to go somewhere in late August, and if you do, you'll meet somebody and work out really well with her. It'll be a long trip—about a week. There was hardly any chance you'd do it before, but now it's almost a sure thing."

[her_imperial_radiance]

"...late August. Uh. I don't know what that'd be." He turns around, sticks his head out the door. "Where would somebody go for a week in late August? Specifically?" he calls.

There's muttering, and then someone says, "Well, me and Ruth are going to Burning Man...?"