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Here is Bella, catching up on her email, trying to come up with a reasonable mathematical approximation of the known abilities of evils versus arrows to guess how many dead people she can bring back with one of the latter, trying to come up with a prioritization scheme for putting her waiting list in order.
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bellfounding
[Assuming by "dinner" is meant "something around dinnertime in the Cronian time zone" - tomorrow at six.] Saturn has ten-hour days and the habitats are under sufficiently dense cloud for natural sunlight to be irrelevant; the bubbles obey a cycle of light and dark that corresponds to Greenwich and matches the length of Earth days.
tearingup
[It's not like I can pick you up from wherever you spend your time when you're not empressing. Do you want to tell Queenie so she can have everything ready on time, or should I?]
bellfounding
[I can. And I spend my intermittent odds and ends of not-empressing time in the palace you saw, but there aren't that many.]
[Hi, Queenie. Thanks. We picked a time. Tomorrow, six, Saturn time.]
[Hi, Queenie. Thanks. We picked a time. Tomorrow, six, Saturn time.]
gunpowdergelatine
[Got it,] Queenie says cheerfully. [We'll have it all set up for ya. Swing by my place first to pick up your outfit, 'kay? You'll like it, it's pretty.]
bellfounding
It's exquisite. It doesn't even have a zipper; Bella has to triangle herself into it lest she tear it trying to shimmy into the close fit, and she peers into the mirror; she's like a stroke of midnight-purple ink against the background. It's sleeveless and floor-length with a high mandarin collar showing just a narrow line of throat and sternum, and the folds of the skirt have lazy swirls of ruby beads creeping over them; when she twirls and the skirt leaps out they shine. "I love it," she says, and she sets her crown to hovering where it belongs and it picks up the color, violet striped red.
tearingup
Ripper answers the door wearing black silk trousers and a white silk shirt, the former pinstriped, the latter pleated; on close inspection, the shirt turns out to have decorous little hints of lace tucked away here and there.
"Aren't you a vision," he says admiringly.
"Aren't you a vision," he says admiringly.
tearingup
And:
They are standing on a flat wooden floor, next to a round wooden table that seems to be all of a piece with it, and not as though they were carved that way but as though they were grown into that shape. The surface of the table is flat and smooth, but not polished. Each of the twining wooden limbs that makes it up just independently happens to flatten out at exactly the same level as its neighbours, and join up snugly with them on every side.
The branches or vines of the floor also reach up and out around the edges of the circular chamber to make, not walls, but a kind of loose leafy lattice; distant stars, none familiar, show through the wide gaps between them. Here and there, a leafless branch leans in to wrap around the base of a candle, all pointing upright and flickering merrily. There is one burning in the very centre of the table, too, between the two empty place settings with their two comfortably cushioned chairs (which do not grow out of the floor, because that would make them hard to move around). Either the leaves or the candles or something else entirely is releasing a pleasant, subtle foresty scent.
And up above, where the branches spread outward without bothering to approximate a ceiling, leaving the view in that direction unobstructed...
"Is that the fucking Milky Way," says Ripper, staring.
They are standing on a flat wooden floor, next to a round wooden table that seems to be all of a piece with it, and not as though they were carved that way but as though they were grown into that shape. The surface of the table is flat and smooth, but not polished. Each of the twining wooden limbs that makes it up just independently happens to flatten out at exactly the same level as its neighbours, and join up snugly with them on every side.
The branches or vines of the floor also reach up and out around the edges of the circular chamber to make, not walls, but a kind of loose leafy lattice; distant stars, none familiar, show through the wide gaps between them. Here and there, a leafless branch leans in to wrap around the base of a candle, all pointing upright and flickering merrily. There is one burning in the very centre of the table, too, between the two empty place settings with their two comfortably cushioned chairs (which do not grow out of the floor, because that would make them hard to move around). Either the leaves or the candles or something else entirely is releasing a pleasant, subtle foresty scent.
And up above, where the branches spread outward without bothering to approximate a ceiling, leaving the view in that direction unobstructed...
"Is that the fucking Milky Way," says Ripper, staring.
bellfounding
Bella looks up.
"It sure looks like the Milky Way," she laughs. "I guess growing us a little gazebo somewhere in Saturn or orbiting Jupiter wouldn't have cut it. This is cute."
And she takes a seat.
"It sure looks like the Milky Way," she laughs. "I guess growing us a little gazebo somewhere in Saturn or orbiting Jupiter wouldn't have cut it. This is cute."
And she takes a seat.
tearingup
Ripper takes... another moment to stare.
Then he also sits.
Their plates fill up with delicious-looking, delicious-smelling, slightly mysterious food.
"I don't think 'cute' is the first word that comes to mind," he says. "'Stunning', maybe."
Then he also sits.
Their plates fill up with delicious-looking, delicious-smelling, slightly mysterious food.
"I don't think 'cute' is the first word that comes to mind," he says. "'Stunning', maybe."
bellfounding
"It's also that," she agrees. "The sentiment behind it is cute, is more what I meant." She commences cutting a bite of mystery food.
bellfounding
"Mmm. Designer organisms." Because that definitely isn't chicken, but whatever it is is yummy.
tearingup
"I have no idea what this is, but I want to eat it more often," says Ripper.
Behind him - all around them, in fact - buds are forming on the vines that make up the loose weave of the walls, and blossoming into flowers. Big, pretty flowers with many layers of soft petals, all in shades of purple that match or complement Bella's dress.
Behind him - all around them, in fact - buds are forming on the vines that make up the loose weave of the walls, and blossoming into flowers. Big, pretty flowers with many layers of soft petals, all in shades of purple that match or complement Bella's dress.
bellfounding
"It was probably invented specifically for the occasion. Make up a name for it and the dining enchantment on your apartment should be able to produce it; enchantments are good at that kind of thing." She reaches out and strokes a flower petal.