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Bella gives James a lift back to her home after they bid their alts in Milliways goodbye.
"Tell me about your best friend. Does everybody call her Virgo?"
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cross_and_bow
cross_and_bow
Snuggles? Snuggles.
Bella doesn't need notebooks anymore. Everything she thinks will stay put for her inspection in its original form.
And so she thinks.
Bella doesn't need notebooks anymore. Everything she thinks will stay put for her inspection in its original form.
And so she thinks.
cross_and_bow
Bella is trying to map the edges of her soul.
She has a few clues. There is what Vampire Juliet did. There is what Amariah said, about Path - Path can't just be a connected owl-creature, to her, he must serve some purpose that outwardly looks like it inhabits Amariah's own body, or he couldn't be so crucial to Amariah's identity. She has Shell Bell's account how she changed after decades Downside: what stayed - what proved indelible, for a Bell with a soul - and what fell away.
"Did she know what she was doing?" Bella asks, after a silence. "Would she have owned up to it by name if it'd come up in conversation with someone she had reason to be honest towards? Or did she manage to delude herself about it somehow?"
She has a few clues. There is what Vampire Juliet did. There is what Amariah said, about Path - Path can't just be a connected owl-creature, to her, he must serve some purpose that outwardly looks like it inhabits Amariah's own body, or he couldn't be so crucial to Amariah's identity. She has Shell Bell's account how she changed after decades Downside: what stayed - what proved indelible, for a Bell with a soul - and what fell away.
"Did she know what she was doing?" Bella asks, after a silence. "Would she have owned up to it by name if it'd come up in conversation with someone she had reason to be honest towards? Or did she manage to delude herself about it somehow?"
eversomuchfun
"I told her she couldn't argue me into it, and she shrugged and said 'oh, okay then' and tried force next. Some people are capable of astonishing levels of self-delusion but not, I don't think, quite that much."
cross_and_bow
"Unless she - no, I'm not going to rationalize for her. Okay. I will find another hypothesis."
cross_and_bow
"Thank you."
Think, think, think.
"Would you mind awfully reproducing what she said before that? It could give me a better idea of what the borders are."
Think, think, think.
"Would you mind awfully reproducing what she said before that? It could give me a better idea of what the borders are."
cross_and_bow
"...She couldn't think of anything to do with the world, if she had it," murmurs Bella. "That's important. I have to figure out how."
She figures on this.
Even unmerged Shell, devoid of memory and identity, had an idea of what she'd do with the world if she had it, warped by her history though it was. And Shell kept her ability to love, truly, generously, in a way that put the point of the love in someone else instead of in her.
James said she could get Bella behind a better candidate for world rulership. Is this true? Probably. Angela is after all not angling for her god's job, last she checked. So the reason the Bells all do in fact want to rule the world except the vampire has to do with the fact that they are right for the job.
The vampire didn't want to rule the world. She couldn't see the point. She was happy to abandon Sunshine, making no further attempt to repair its flaws. She thought Shell Bell should've had a pentagon effectively stolen from her, even if she didn't care about the results that would have achieved.
"Who says I have one?"
A Bell without ambition.
She didn't care what happened to anyone. Except herself. She tried to talk Sherlock into doing what she wanted, and as soon as that didn't look like the easiest way to get it, she changed tactics. She wasn't making any long-term plans or she'd have done a better job of pretending to be Bella-as-she-was. She just saw something she wanted, devoid of any terms referring to people other than her and what they liked or didn't - and she inspected what she wanted and what she had and how to get the latter using the former. That ability was intact. In the short term. Unless Bella's ability to get bored had gone with everything else -
"Maybe my entire ability to care about other people is attached to ethical - stuff," murmurs Bella. "Maybe I don't care about people I love differently from people I don't know, just - more. That and long-term planning. That might do it."
She figures on this.
Even unmerged Shell, devoid of memory and identity, had an idea of what she'd do with the world if she had it, warped by her history though it was. And Shell kept her ability to love, truly, generously, in a way that put the point of the love in someone else instead of in her.
James said she could get Bella behind a better candidate for world rulership. Is this true? Probably. Angela is after all not angling for her god's job, last she checked. So the reason the Bells all do in fact want to rule the world except the vampire has to do with the fact that they are right for the job.
The vampire didn't want to rule the world. She couldn't see the point. She was happy to abandon Sunshine, making no further attempt to repair its flaws. She thought Shell Bell should've had a pentagon effectively stolen from her, even if she didn't care about the results that would have achieved.
"Who says I have one?"
A Bell without ambition.
She didn't care what happened to anyone. Except herself. She tried to talk Sherlock into doing what she wanted, and as soon as that didn't look like the easiest way to get it, she changed tactics. She wasn't making any long-term plans or she'd have done a better job of pretending to be Bella-as-she-was. She just saw something she wanted, devoid of any terms referring to people other than her and what they liked or didn't - and she inspected what she wanted and what she had and how to get the latter using the former. That ability was intact. In the short term. Unless Bella's ability to get bored had gone with everything else -
"Maybe my entire ability to care about other people is attached to ethical - stuff," murmurs Bella. "Maybe I don't care about people I love differently from people I don't know, just - more. That and long-term planning. That might do it."
eversomuchfun
"I see," says Sherlock. "And what are you going to do with this information?"
cross_and_bow
"I'm not sure. It doesn't seem to add up to anything I can cut out and set on fire, does it."
eversomuchfun
"No. Although I suppose it will make your warning to the rest of them more informative."
cross_and_bow
"Yes. 'Don't turn into a Sunshine vampire. It will destroy your ability to make long-term plans and care about what happens to anyone besides yourself' is a little more specific than 'don't turn into a Sunshine vampire, just don't' would be."
eversomuchfun
"I suspect naming the verified consequence would also be quite motivating."
cross_and_bow
Snuggly hugs with ki-?
She decides not to push it. The ball can be in his court for a while. However long a while.
She decides not to push it. The ball can be in his court for a while. However long a while.
cross_and_bow
She doesn't want to stop kissing him. That's what brainphones are for! [Where d'you want to watch the sunrise from?]
eversomuchfun
[Oh, anywhere, really. Somewhere out in the open. A mile above the town, since we can both fly,] he suggests whimsically.