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.
"Hi, Darcy. Looks like you're stalling about something that has nothing to do with me, want help?"
"Ooh," says Darcy. "Hi! Are you thinking about a particular kind of help?"
"Pretty good, pretty good. So it turns out I have an alt who is a dragon," she says. "I'm really not sure how to deal."
"That explains the stalling then, yeah. Wow. I don't have any advice socked away for this occasion, Mum pretty much had no special reaction to his dragon alt."
"Your mom is, like, up to his eyebrows in alts," Darcy points out. "I only have one, and she's a freaking dragon! I mean, it's awesome, but what do I even talk to her about?"
"I don't know. I guess you could go up to her and say, 'you're a dragon, that's awesome' - like, she's your alt, so how would you feel if a dragon went up to you and said - 'you have a magic space hammer, that's awesome'?"
"I... would feel pretty good about that," Darcy admits. "Huh." Her desire to stall is lessening.
She grins and hugs him. "You're a champ, dude. Wanna come meet my dragon alt with me?"
The archways leading outside are dragon-sized. They're not hard to find. Darcy heads for the closest.
"Okay," she says, "I'm thinking this is gonna take flying. How do you feel about me carrying you?"
(Darcy feels pretty good about her carrying him, personally.)
He glances at her colorshapes. He decides to omit to mention that he once mentioned casually at age two that flying looked fun and that his mum rendered him able to do it thereafter. "Sounds like a plan."
"Okay, hug me," she says, putting one arm around his waist and unholstering Mjolnir with her other hand. "We can catch you if you slip but I'd rather not have to."
She brings them in a wide arc out away from the platform, looking for likely dragons.
"I know!" Darcy yells back. "It's the magic space hammer that does it!"
"So hi!" she says. "I'm Darcy."