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Bella has just been to visit the Mikleeeeeeeee. It went well, after she flared aura and shouted abuse at the crown prince. (Demonstrating this form of "heedless confrontationalism", it was explained by a quarter-Mikleeeeeeeee girl James found for her to talk to, an essential part of the species' diplomatic process. This held up under lie-detection, but Bella found a few examples via pastwatching before actually doing it.) They have a treaty; they're going to get back to her with revisions they'd like made to their dimension and they're going to end the five hundred year "human season".
Now she's between tasks, hanging out in one of the Jarvises.
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cross_and_bow
grabsthebutt
Val lands and retracts her wings, then knocks on the door of what looks like it might be a house. She stays glowy even after returning to her normal shape.
cross_and_bow
Bella lands behind Val, off to the side enough to see around her.
grabsthebutt
The door opens, and out comes a Sessiaki: fine scales that resemble mother-of-pearl, short hair like steel wool, and a long pointed tail coiling around her legs.
She blinks at Val, then scoops her into a tight hug.
"Hi, Auntie Eiva!" laughs Val, speaking the local language with a noticeable accent. "Is Mom home?"
The Sessiaki, presumably named Eiva, puts her down and locates Ike to hug next.
"Not today," she says, giving Ike a slightly gentler squish and then putting him down too. She turns to Bella. "And who's your friend?"
She blinks at Val, then scoops her into a tight hug.
"Hi, Auntie Eiva!" laughs Val, speaking the local language with a noticeable accent. "Is Mom home?"
The Sessiaki, presumably named Eiva, puts her down and locates Ike to hug next.
"Not today," she says, giving Ike a slightly gentler squish and then putting him down too. She turns to Bella. "And who's your friend?"
cross_and_bow
"I'm Bella," says Bella. She has a magically perfect accent. "It's nice to meet you."
newtimov
"She's our friend from Earth," Ike puts in, in similarly perfect Kiessa, not that this is hard to deduce.
"And I'm Eiva," says Eiva. "What are you here for, Bella?"
"And I'm Eiva," says Eiva. "What are you here for, Bella?"
cross_and_bow
"I'm having a look around Siathe. Val and Ike are kindly showing me around. I'm trying to familiarize myself with all the sapient species in the world."
"Is there a reason you're doing that?" Eiva inquires.
cross_and_bow
"I have acquired a lot of magic, so I want to learn what's around and see what needs doing with it. This morning I bribed the Mikleeeeeeeee to agree to stop eating people, but not everything's that obvious. I don't know about here yet, so far my impression of Siathe amounts to 'pretty', but maybe I can be useful."
Eiva glances thoughtfully at Val.
newtimov
"Ithuetse are - mediators. Diplomats," says Ike. "Which is hilarious to us, because Val is the least mediated person I know, but it's taken pretty seriously around Siathe in general. You're not going to get anywhere trying any kind of official diplomatic contact unless you can find an ithue and convince them to talk to everybody else for you."
cross_and_bow
"Oh. Val, d'you want to talk to my personnel officer sometime?" shrugs Bella. "Or does anyone present have a recommendation for somebody who would?"
grabsthebutt
"Sure," snorts Val. "I'll talk to your personnel officer. Who'll tell you I'm about as diplomatic as a punch in the face."
"Which might be a little less true if you punched people less often," observes Eiva.
"Which might be a little less true if you punched people less often," observes Eiva.
cross_and_bow
"I'm only slightly more diplomatic than a punch in the face," Bella says. "I'll work with what I've got. I'll hire somebody else if somebody better for the job turns up. At least the failure mode here isn't 'people get eaten'."
cross_and_bow
"That is very good. I disapprove of anthropophagy. That's why I quarantined vampires."
newtimov
"Oh, did you do that? Of course you did that," says Ike. "I can't imagine how I could ever have thought anyone else did that."
cross_and_bow
"Yeah, that was me, I covered Sunshine's relatives too, I bet the vampire community is super confused. How'd you hear about it?"
grabsthebutt
"Because we ershil," says Val, which is the first-person form of a verb meaning what ithuetse do when they touch their glowy white parts together. "How good's your language thing, anyway? Do I need to explain that?"
cross_and_bow
"My language thing's good, but it ends at the limits of my conceptual vocabulary; I can tell it's a verb and it means something that happens when two glowy white person-bits interact and that's all."
grabsthebutt
"You could say that," she snorts. "If I touch my iethat to another ithue's, we can kind of... pass thoughts back and forth, I guess you'd say. Remember when I said you couldn't," she drops into English, "shake tentacles," and back to Kiessa, "with anybody? That's what I was talking about. Around here it's the only way to get really serious talking done."