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Aianon has made a plant in the open airless space above the surface of Thilanushinyel. It is a very, very large plant - some dragons will be attending the party, after all, even if Ansharil in particular is going to be assorted small things and stay on Sarion's person the bulk of the time.
The locals will be Sarion, her beloveds, their other beloved, the five conjured dragons (and their Bondmates, where applicable: Virgivere and Lissa), and Liselen - Magania has, as usual, declined, and so far no Bell party has featured Bell parents.
Amariah is bringing her boyfriend and spontaneous daughter and two of the spontaneous daughter's friends, as well as an Alethian instance of the Rupert template.
Shell Bell is bringing Pearl and Screwdriver.
Golden is bringing her usual large contingent, as usual not including her husband but including her daughter and daughter's grown fosterling (the other remaining at home) and his wolf, both mothers-in-law and one father-in-law, adopted siblings, staff members including the Joker and Nathan, and the children of the aforementioned.
Glass is bringing both wives, all three daughters, Kanim, and her cat. She invited Icarin and Valeria, but their parents are not willing to let them gallivant into other worlds unsupervised and had a scheduling conflict.
Stella's bringing a smattering of people including Alice, Anna, Sandy, Libby, Bridget, her college roommate Janine, and Lazarus.
Tab is bringing Aelise (but not Kers) and Luhan.
Etty is bringing only Nona.
Aether, likewise, brings no one but Celo.
Pattern comes with Ripper, Slipstick, Queenie, and Ghosty.
Aegis is accompanied by her four-bodied boyfriend, Merryweather, Whitlock, and Howlett.
Aurora comes with Brilliance, Lexi with her Device Persica, Agent Honey with her Device Adularia, and Beth.
Rose brings her husband and three children and her former apprentice, Luc.
Angela brings her husband, her four children, several of her friends, and some of those friends' children and grandchildren with and without wings. Keziah also brings a friend.
Juliet shows up with Soph, Minus, Red, Giles, James, Virginia, Minnie, Ike, and Val.
Cam brings Jellybean and Tilly and stops there.
And from unBelled worlds hail additional Sherlocks and Tonies, Darcy, Matilda, Pepper, and Eights.
small_magics
cross_and_bow
Juliet has now introduced Cam and Ike. She feels that she has done a good deed. Now she is telling Minnie that, no, really, she should not go supervise them, that would not be okay.
eversomuchfun
"If you want to watch someone doing things people don't normally want you to watch, I recommend the Jokers," says Minus. He gives Juliet a peck on the cheek in greeting.
cross_and_bow
"Ooooh, do you think I could?" muses Minnie.
"Yeah, they made a point of telling everybody they were available as porn, a while ago," snorts Juliet, "that's a good idea. Introduce yourself and make sure they don't have anybody extra in with them first, though."
"Okay!" says Minnie, and she ghosts off to do that.
Juliet returns the peck. "So Tab didn't feel like getting up and making a speech in front of a couple dozen people about why she didn't assassinate her approximately-adoptive-relatives to try get through them to Chelsa, so she just told Jane about it and Jane relayed."
"Yeah, they made a point of telling everybody they were available as porn, a while ago," snorts Juliet, "that's a good idea. Introduce yourself and make sure they don't have anybody extra in with them first, though."
"Okay!" says Minnie, and she ghosts off to do that.
Juliet returns the peck. "So Tab didn't feel like getting up and making a speech in front of a couple dozen people about why she didn't assassinate her approximately-adoptive-relatives to try get through them to Chelsa, so she just told Jane about it and Jane relayed."
cross_and_bow
"Basically Tab had herself and Aelise representing people who had different priorities regarding Chelsaing versus warfare, and both of them had been in positions to get what they wanted in that department - Aelise sought Chelsa out in the first place, had to deliberately allow herself to be 'kindled' because Chelsa won't work with anyone who doesn't like her; Tab had her gift keeping her safe. And both Tab and Aelise are reasonable people who don't actually approve of mind-control, and Tab didn't have any strong reason to believe that the general population of Gift - even if they were presented the question without Chelsa having been involved - would prefer her risk tolerance over Aelise's. Certainly she was never confident enough to gamble on it by, as a teenager, attempting a high-risk assassination of her surrogate family who were taking significant chances to keep her safe and guarantee the destabilization of an empire that was otherwise working pretty well. Probably all bets would have been off if Tab's personal affections had been on the line - we're kind of selfish like that, Bells are - and she would definitely have gotten impatient if she hadn't found an Aelise-tolerable solution when she did, but that's her explanation for why she didn't immediately attempt to set everything on metaphorical fire."
eversomuchfun
"...My next question, of course, is what Aelise sought Chelsa out for."
cross_and_bow
"An end to warfare. Such as the one that ended with Toronto destroyed so Tab had to resurrect it on a planet with giant trees."
cross_and_bow
"I wouldn't have done it, but I can understand Tab not committing several murders of people she liked, at age twelve or so, in order to make a low-probability attempt at undoing it."
eversomuchfun
"I wouldn't have done it, but for purely selfish reasons," he says. "And because I wouldn't know what to do with an empire if I had one."
cross_and_bow
"If you ever find yourself in possession of a spare I'm sure you know someone who'd look after it for you."
eversomuchfun
He kisses the end of her nose. "You will be my first port of call if ever I need to get rid of an empire," he assures her.
eversomuchfun
"But I hope to keep from accumulating any in the first place. Saves trouble."
cross_and_bow
"I would imagine so. You get to live the cushy Imperial Consort life."
eversomuchfun
"Much better than trying to run the bloody thing, in my humble opinion."
cross_and_bow
"Isn't it convenient that we have these compatible specialties?"
cross_and_bow
Kisses! Not particularly specialized kisses, but really, that is how they are supposed to work.
eversomuchfun
"I'm sure this thing was grown with a plentitude of comfortable private little rooms," he says, after there have been some kisses. "D'you want to go find one?"
cross_and_bow
"Ooh, what an idea." A pleasing idea, judging by the look on her face.
cross_and_bow
She kisses him again and teleports them to the nearest unoccupied private little room.
eversomuchfun
Where they will do private things, which Minnie will hopefully not supervise.
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