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Mars has more people on it now. Bella has conjured herself a crown of seamless moissanite and star sapphire, and wears it around most of the time. She does something nice for Earth every Cygnus and makes routine public appearances, with the PR guy Libby found for her on the brainphone steering her away from missteps. (Most missteps. Occasionally she just disagrees with him.) Life is good.
It happens one day that she attempts to read Alice, thinking it about time to top off her supply of coins - and besides, even if it weren't, she does like to spend time with her boyfriend - and - he's not there.
Her first reaction is panic. She has known from the beginning that a contest between them would come down to reaction time. Did she screw up by introducing him to Ghosty - did something else happen - does some switch trip in the relevant template at a certain age, is hers decent only because he's young - has he blocked her off with his considerable power and begun to wreak havoc?
But of course there's a much more reasonable explanation. He's in Milliways, that's all, he found a door and wandered off without thinking to notify her.
Because visits to Milliways take only moments worldside. This has been true even when they've been into other's worlds: the door is at a very narrow slice of time except when held open.
But she checks again a minute later.
And he's still not there.
Is he dead? Did he think of - stumble across - cook up some way to die that would be so fascinating that he had to try it right then, without consulting her, without thinking of her and how it would hurt her at all, without knowing if stars can revive the dead -
Or did he, somehow, in spite of what is now magically bolstered love for her -
Decide not to come back at all?
She's getting ahead of herself. She can find out if he went to Milliways or not. She -
Stops before completing her wish.
If he's gone - if he's not coming back soon, or at all - then she has to work at least for a while with the coins she already has.
She will not spend a pentagon to see this one snippet of the past. She will spend a hex to gain past-viewing as a stable power she can use whenever she wants. If she chooses the right powers to make with her current supply of hexes, she may be able to coast for many years with almost no individual wishes larger than a square. Now that she has the template of Olympus to draw on she's sure she could find a way to compress wishes for more cities - maybe even planetsful of cities - into single stars, and she has a lot of stars from the days Alice spent turning.
And there have got to be other masochists in the world. Some might be comparable, or people like Shell Bell's Sherlock who'll willingly be made so.
Her empire will go on just fine.
Bella's just not sure - when she's finished designing and installing the power, when she's finished watching Alice casually walk through the kitchen door in his lair to Milliways instead and not come out - whether she will.
self_composed
"I am not super keen on you reading my mind," says Anna. "But I'm almost hesitant to ask what else you'd do to make sure I'm not, I don't know, handing out... pentagons?... on the sly."
self_composed
"Geases like the nondisclosure agreement are an option," Bella says. "I'm open to suggestions."
self_composed
"Letting coins you make leave your possession except in specified ways?" suggests Bella, shrugging. "The way I designed the power, I can release a geas - or even remove just parts of it, as long as the result is strictly less binding than the original - at any time, so there would be opportunities to revise it if it turned out to be inconvenient."
self_composed
Bella nods. "I don't expect most people to want 'mindreading subject' as part of their job description," she says ruefully. "Do you have more questions? Or anything you want to tell me? I'd let you keep some reasonable fraction of the hexes and smaller you made, if I hire you; what would you do with them?"
"Like... stop buying clothes and groceries and getting my hair cut and whatever and just do all that by magic," she says. "And maybe move somewhere nicer, if I figured out some way to turn magic into money that's not totally sleazy, or you paid me really well."
self_composed
"You realize that even if nothing further comes of this conversation at all you can just move to Mars and eat food out of the replicator," says Bella. "Olympus isn't full yet."
self_composed
"Yeah, that's what I always hear when people list problems they could solve by moving to Mars and I ask them why they don't," says Bella. "Well, not Montreal in particular, but whatever pleasing city they are occupying."
self_composed
"I confess I expected the free food and magic public healthcare to attract more people than it has," Bella says conversationally. "But I am getting settlers at a reasonable clip."
"People might also not believe you about those things," Anna points out. "I mean, even I'm not totally sure, and I'm here."
self_composed
Bella spreads her hands. "Yeah, that's a problem. It's possible I should have charged some pittance and spouted bull about economies of scale. But that seems like such a wretched thing to do. I can give it away for free, I want to give it away for free, all I want to do is wear a crown and introduce myself as Empress of the Stars and have some actual happy citizens to back that up - finessing a complicated signaling game to do less of what I want doesn't appeal."
self_composed
"I'm so glad," Bella grins. "So. Questions? Comments? Concerns? Demonstrations of responsible behavior likely to correlate with the nondestructive use of wishcoins?"
"I don't think my win there is gonna be how responsible I am," Anna says frankly. "I think it's gonna be how boring."
self_composed
"What do you do with your time?" asks Bella, tilting her head. "I know if you have a job you don't like it; what do you like?"
"Nightclubs," she says. "Loud music. Making out with strangers. Watching kinky porn. Avoiding my boyfriend."
self_composed
"...Avoiding your boyfriend?" Kind of an intrusive question, but Anna's the one who mentioned it.
self_composed
If Bella's boyfriend were here she wouldn't be talking to Anna and she certainly wouldn't be avoiding him.
"Why is he your boyfriend if you prefer to avoid him, is more what had me confused," says Bella.
"Why is he your boyfriend if you prefer to avoid him, is more what had me confused," says Bella.
"He's kind of hard to break up with?" she says. "I mean, it's not like he stalks me or anything, it's just we've been together for a while and there's always more of each other's stuff to give back and then he brings me flowers and we end up accidentally on another date and... why am I telling an empress about my love life," she laughs. "Sorry."