"Hello, your majesty!" says the only minion in the room when she appears - one of the oldest. He clasps his hands together in front of him, seeming excited and a little nervous.

"Hey, you." They have never admitted to having names; Bella picks out particular ones to address, when necessary, by pointing or referring to what they're wearing. "How are things?"

"Things are, um, good, your majesty," he says. "Yes. And... we have a request, if it's not too soon..." He wrings his hands a little.

"...Too soon? Have you been putting off asking me something?"

"Oh, no, your majesty!" he says earnestly. "This is much sooner than we'd be asking anyone else."

"Okay, what is it that you want?"

"We, um, that is... some of us would like to have some children," he says, peering at her hopefully.

"There's space in the dorm, I'll expand it if you need more," Bella says. "If that isn't the question I'm really confused."

"Well... we're your minions, your majesty," he says. "We need your permission. I mean, the ones who want to have children do, specifically, I'm not one of them—if you, ah, have time, do you mind if I go get them now...?"

"Wait, hang on - they need my permission because they don't want to go around affecting my minion supply without my say-so, or they need my permission, literally, otherwise no baby minions?"

"Um. The second thing, your majesty."

"How," says Bella, "does that work, exactly, what do I need to do to formally supply permission?"

"Oh, it's not difficult or complicated," he assures her hastily. "The minions who want to have children will ask, and hand you a beverage, and you just hand it back. With whatever blessing you feel is appropriate. Your majesty."

"A blessing such as? On the beverage or the minions or the future child or what?"

"It doesn't matter," he says, wringing his hands again. "Glory used to say 'Make me little yucky babies!', or nothing at all."

"Well, that was hardly polite of her. You know, I could probably just magic it so you don't have to go through this rigmarole?"

He cringes slightly.

"Would that be unwelcome?"

"Y-yes, your majesty."

"Okay, I can skip it. Uh. Is this why you guys are minions?"

"Not exactly, your majesty!"

"Not exactly?"

"Well... we want to be minions, your majesty," he says. "And, well... with most people, once you've started minioning, it's not very easy to stop..." He wrings his hands again.

"I'm not most people, if any of you would prefer stop minioning you can. Is there any reason you want to be minions besides that just being the kind of species you are?"

"...I don't know, your majesty," he says helplessly.

"Okay. Well, I'll bless beverages, if the would-be-parents are ready now."

Bella takes the can and then hands it back. "You may, and with my blessing," she says.

Bella blesses them all, and only then asks, "You guys don't reproduce pairwise?"

"No, your majesty," says the last minion to be blessed. "Well, sometimes."

"Okay. Well, best of luck at parenting to all of you. Is there anything else while I'm here?"

The original minion shakes his head. "No, your majesty! Thank you!"

"Hello," says the Jarvis.

"Hi, Jarvis!" She can faintly hear the sounds of violin playing and floats her way up the stairs towards it.

Sherlock is playing the violin! What a surprise.

Surprise. Right. Bella floats in through the open door and hovers, listening.

He grins at her and keeps playing.

It's pretty music. Bella winks when he smiles, and watches.

Hug! "Turns out they require divine permission to reproduce, so I blessed... five cans of grape soda... and presumably can expect baby minions in the future."

"I did not ask why grape soda in particular. From the description of what I was supposed to do it could have been any beverage, maybe they just like it. If it was supposed to be a solid food I would have expected M&Ms."

He giggles into her shoulder.

"I asked the one who explained it to me if this was why they were minions and he said 'not exactly' -" She proceeds to relate the conversation, verbatim.

The conversation causes Sherlock to giggle some more. While snuggling her.

Snuggles! Giggles! "He looked uncomfortable so I didn't push him any farther about what is so great about being a minion," she adds. "I wonder if baby minions with a, you know, non-hellish deity will be so keen on the career prospect. I'd be perfectly happy to set them up in another little village like I did with the other Mercury imports."

"We'll see, I suppose. Do you happen to know how fast baby minions grow into the non-baby variety?"

"No idea. I'm not sure how old the ones I have are."

"And we are likewise ignorant about how long it takes from grape soda to the onset of baby minions," he muses. "Well, it will just have to be a surprise."

"I could ask them, but I'm really not confident in their ability at this time to distinguish between 'her majesty is just curious and I can tell her to mind her own business' and 'I must answer her majesty because I am a minion'."

"Yes, there is that."

"I suppose I could get Soph to ask. Or you, maybe, but they seem more casual around Her Majesty's Sister than Her Majesty's Consort."

"Perhaps because Her Majesty's Consort visits so rarely," he says, and kisses Her Majesty's cheek.

"That could be it, yeah, Soph is up there all the time teaching them interesting forms of poker and stuff." She kisses the end of his nose.

Now his nose is especially majestic! He nuzzles her with it.

Bella laughs, and squeezes him. "I love you."

"I wonder if baby minions are any better-looking than grown-up minions. Probably not, but maybe in a wrinkly-puppy kinda way? I suppose I will probably see."

"Are wrinkly puppies especially endearing?"

"Not more than regular puppies, but enough to earn the adjective."

"Aha."

"They look old and baby at the same time," Bella explains.

He giggles.

Snuggles. Sherlock is even cuter than a wrinkly puppy.

And terribly proud of this achievement.

Apparently he is also smugger than a wrinkly puppy. Wrinkly puppies are mostly kind of confused.

Sherlock is not at all confused. He generally isn't, in fact, but at this particular moment he is especially not.

That is good. Bella is not confused right now either. She is just snuggly.

That is how Sherlock is also! What a coincidence.

It is not really a coincidence at all!

That is true. It is not. It is a snuggle.

A highly non-coincidental sort of snuggle.

Yes.

Good, all narration is agreed.

And all participants are snuggly.

They are! Very snuggly. Very very snuggly.

Soooooooo snuggly.

And a contest would be likely to distract from the snuggling. Much better to snuggle uncontested.

Soooo much better.