cake and ice cream

[self_composed]

Bella finds Milliways next, too, on New Year's Day, and calls in Alice (he's not coming to Goldenworld even if they find a person who can take them there, but he might find someone interesting to talk to in the bar) and also Lazarus. She mentions the door to Libby, too, in case she and/or her wolf want to take an excursion and see if his friends and family back home can be visited.

Comments

[nonbird]

"Maybeep!"

[yourheartstrings]

"Hiiiiiii," purrs the woman who has suddenly appeared out of more or less thin air with her arms draped around his neck. She is only a few inches shorter than he is, wearing a graphite-coloured strapless dress so thin and skintight (albeit perfectly opaque) that body paint would probably be less revealing, and there might be something more than a little familiar about the cast of her face.

[self_composed]

"Uh," says Bella. "Who're you, where'd you come from, and why are you making him eep?"

[yourheartstrings]

She giggles.

[nonbird]

"Those are all really good questions," says Lazarus.

[yourheartstrings]

She lets go and steps back with a wide, friendly smile.

"You can see me," she says, pointing at Lazarus. "You're the first person I've ever seen see me. What's your secret?"

[nonbird]

"I eat a lot of carrots."

[yourheartstrings]

She claps her hands and twirls around.

"Ohhh, you're fun, you're fun, you're fun," she crows.

[self_composed]

"You're familiar," Bella accuses suddenly.

[yourheartstrings]

The familiar stranger cocks her head and spins to face Bella.

"Am I? You're not."

[nonbird]

"...Kind of like a combination of Addy and Alice, actually," says Lazarus.

[self_composed]

"Look at her face, she's like a female Alice," says Bella. "I suppose she's got some Addyesque properties too but she doesn't physically resemble her."

[nonbird]

"Magically she's nothing like either of them," he says. "Magically she's nothing like anything."

[yourheartstrings]

"Who's Alice?" she inquires. "Does he look like—"

Her body disintegrates in a flash, from the dress inward; the skeleton is the last to go, and it lingers for a moment, clean and white.

[gunpowdergelatine]

Then a new skeleton appears, just slightly different from the last, and a new body assembles on it as quickly as the other one left. He's even wearing the same tight grey dress.

"—this, by any chance?"

[self_composed]

"Well, he would have if I'd let him get a bit older before I turned him into a vampire," says Bella. "So what are you?"

[yourheartstrings]

She unravels and reweaves herself again.

"I'm a ghost!" she says brightly.

[nonbird]

"It is both really gross and really fascinating when you do that," says Lazarus.

[self_composed]

"Agreed on both counts," says Bella. "What kinda world has this kinda ghost?"

[yourheartstrings]

"Mine," she says impishly.

[self_composed]

"Well," Bella says. "Now I am enlightened, aren't I."

[yourheartstrings]

"Aww, I'm sorry," she says with apparent sincerity. "But I really don't know! I'm the only one of me I've ever found."

[self_composed]

"Huh. Do you think you'd be able to see another of you if there were one? Since others who aren't Lazarus can't see you?"

[yourheartstrings]

"Maybe," she says. "Maybe not." She grins at Lazarus. "Maybe I should stick by you for a while."

[nonbird]

"...I am so torn," says Lazarus.