Bella teleports to where Sherlock is and flops down somewhat lapward. "Just checking," she says, "if I disappeared for several decades I would not come home to an unexpected alt of Carinna, right?"
[Yeah. Chelsea was a witch and she could build up or destroy relationships. The government Golden deposed used her to keep a larger-than-normal people-eating coven together without falling apart, and keep their enemies divided, and collect useful witches, and control the wolves. There's one in Tab's world, and she's stronger and she has better range and the local copy of James used her to take over the world, and Tab, astonishingly, has not assassinated either of them. Her jurisdiction, but it weirds me out.]
[I am sure she has her reasons, although I confess I can't imagine what the hell they are.]
[The Gifts people have there are serious business, it's not just the Chelsea alt who's got major horror potential. I suppose turning everybody into a Care Bear might compete favorably with letting them run amok if people there are particularly prone to running amok. And Aelise - that's the James there - said Chelsa was retired.]
[I think I can see what would tempt a James to take over that world. I'm less sure about the Care Bear part. What does a 'retired' Chelsa look like?]
[They didn't say exactly. I'm sure Tab will explain herself to everyone at the next Bellparty.]
[Tab herself is safe from Chelsa, of course, and she's got a level of opacity that's competitive with or even better than Golden even though Golden has both the vampire boost and the aura boost.]
[In Chelsa not having gotten assassinated? I'm not sure, actually. We don't know what happens if a Chelsea-type actually gets at a Bell. Jokers are capable of intense mixed feelings, we know - Harley got got, the Gift Joker got got, I'm pretty sure neither of them acts in a way consistent with unambiguous Chelsa-adoration. But we haven't seen the case where a Bell has her feelings modified like that and I'm not sure what would happen.]
[Not deliberately, but now we know Chelsea's a template, and not every Bell has opacity.]
[She can undo any positive Chelsea-based affections. She can't put back what was taken.]
[Oh, delightful,] he sighs, snuggling her. [We kill these people when we find them, yes?]
[Golden killed hers. Tab explicitly told her not to kill the Gift one, on the grounds that she still has enough contact with the population for it to be a sharp shock.]
[Tab is setting up on another planet that Chelsa doesn't know about, with the resurrected city of It Got Nuked This One Time Toronto, not that there's any reason you need to visit Gift.]
"Idle curiosity. If I factor out Elspeth I'm way more freaked out by the part she can fix. You don't have to answer if you don't want."