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Here, in a place where she is quite an unexpected sight, is:
an eight year old girl with brown-flecked white wings, looking dismayed and lost.
pen_is_wow
whatamithinking
"...I will happily take immortality! Is that a thing you can do, how hard is it, actually can you make everyone I love immortal?"
thaumobabble
"I can make more or less arbitrary numbers of people immortal but I want to be thoughtful about how I do it, both because it can be conspicuous and dangerous, because it would give anyone who had it a major tactical advantage and I don't necessarily know how you're likely to use that, and because me or someone else on the short list of people with torching distribution has to do it. You don't have a Bell, or I'd just hand this off to her. Bare minimum I want to leave a Janegem in your world."
whatamithinking
"Right, yes, that's fair...it's just, our dad is a Holocaust survivor, he saw his parents killed right in front of him...I've always wished I could meet my grandparents, on that side at least, so..."
thaumobabble
"Well, meeting them is technically a different proposition from resurrecting them. When your world's added to Downside, well, Downside is set up to accommodate - if not particularly beautifully so - any number of residents, awake and walking around and everything. I'm much less leery of taking you for a visit there than I am of opening up the floodgates for everyone to go back to the land of the living. Especially since resurrected people are unavoidably able to torch - that's the form of immortality we have on hand, it's so called because under circumstances where we would ordinarily die we instead reset to a healthy state under the rather aesthetically pleasing cover of appearing to be on fire."
thaumobabble
"Sure."
Glass steps into the world. "You can close the door if you like. I have no objection to dropping you off in Milliways again on my way out if you'd like to explore it."
Glass steps into the world. "You can close the door if you like. I have no objection to dropping you off in Milliways again on my way out if you'd like to explore it."
whatamithinking
"Thanks."
The twins step out into the hallway. "Papa's teaching a class right now, but I think this probably counts as an exceptional enough circumstance for it to get let out early." She pauses. "Yep. Do you need to be led there or do you also have some kind of navigational power or something?"
The twins step out into the hallway. "Papa's teaching a class right now, but I think this probably counts as an exceptional enough circumstance for it to get let out early." She pauses. "Yep. Do you need to be led there or do you also have some kind of navigational power or something?"
iamnotpolaris
"I love how you phrased that. It's this way."
It isn't very far to the relevant classroom.
It isn't very far to the relevant classroom.
They pass some kids about the sisters' age, maybe a little younger, coming from the opposite direction. Glass gets a few odd looks, but no one comments.
Inside the classroom there is a middle-aged man in a wheelchair stacking some papers at the front of the room.
Inside the classroom there is a middle-aged man in a wheelchair stacking some papers at the front of the room.
iamnotpolaris
"Hi, Papa, this is Isabella Swan, known as Glass because apparently there are a lot of Isabella Swans, one of whom is Pen's mother, I think. Glass, this is Edie's and my father, Charles Xavier. Well. One of them, anyway."
thaumobabble
"It's nice to meet you too. Pen's mother is a Bell like me but she doesn't actually have a last name," Glass clarifies. Handshake. "The other Bells are currently debating who should in the long-term take point on this world; I'm just the scout. Sooner or later someone will probably appear to replace me, don't get accustomed. It's currently a tossup between Pen's mother Angela and Aegis, the mutant Bell."
"That makes sense," Charles says. "I should probably warn you, while it's not anywhere near as bad as it could be, an openly mutant representative might not be the most diplomatic interface with the local government."
A sharper-looking man of about the same age in a black turtleneck enters the room. He gives Glass an appraising look.
A sharper-looking man of about the same age in a black turtleneck enters the room. He gives Glass an appraising look.
whatamithinking
"Uhm, I already told Pen this--one of the physical mutations that happen sometimes is a sort of functional hermaphroditism. So, this is our other Dad--the one I mentioned--Erik Lehnscherr. Dad, this is Glass, she's an alternate universe version of Pen's Mom."
To Glass: "Sooo, are they the same category thing as us?"
To Glass: "Sooo, are they the same category thing as us?"
thaumobabble
Glass waves at the new visitor. "Yes, you're all four the same moiety. Aegis's mutation is invisible and purely defensive; the problem is that she as a person is less diplomatic than the average Bell, and we are not an especially diplomatic breed to begin with. That and she's fifteen. Angela is on the higher end of Bell diplomacy, but she does, of course, have wings, and relatively limited expertise on Earths of this time period. I can recommend that someone else entirely handle it? Pattern's not too busy, looks human, and like many Bells was born in the United States in 1987."
thaumobabble
"Yes. The remaining questions are whether I'm bothering the admin or making someone here immortal, and whether we're waking them up Downside or bringing them here. Do you have a place to put them? A way to get them replacement legal identities if they'll want them, sufficient cushion in the living arrangements...? Oh, also, they'll look about twenty-five unless they ask for additional cosmetic magic to adjust that."
"They can stay here. It's a huge place, we're not using all of the living space even with all of the students," Charles said. "I'm sure I can get them some kind of paperwork. I have to do it sometimes with the students, if they don't already legally exist. And sometimes they don't," he says sadly. "I have plenty of money, we can take care of them easily. I have no idea if they'll want to look older," he adds, glancing at Erik.
Erik shakes his head. "I wish I remembered more of them, but this isn't the kind of thing that would have been discussed even so."
"Edie told me the reasons you have for being cautious about handing out immortality, and I can't say I have anything in particular that I think would completely ameliorate them," Charles says. "With Cerebro, we could probably find and rescue anyone who got into a situation that was trying very hard to kill them, but I can't claim that the tactical aspect you mentioned would be completely irrelevant." He summarizes the X-Men.
Erik shakes his head. "I wish I remembered more of them, but this isn't the kind of thing that would have been discussed even so."
"Edie told me the reasons you have for being cautious about handing out immortality, and I can't say I have anything in particular that I think would completely ameliorate them," Charles says. "With Cerebro, we could probably find and rescue anyone who got into a situation that was trying very hard to kill them, but I can't claim that the tactical aspect you mentioned would be completely irrelevant." He summarizes the X-Men.
thaumobabble
"Yes, this is a bit of a quandary. Do you have any objections to Jane eating your internet and maintaining a Janepoint in an inaccessible location so that we can, if nothing else, check up on things?"
"If I understand correctly what a Janepoint is, I don't think either of us has any objection whatsoever to that," Charles says, exchanging a glance with Erik. "But what's an internet?"
thaumobabble
"Maybe you don't have it quite yet? I don't know that I've ever been told exactly when Earths tend to invent those - Jane says you're not quite there by standard timeline. Well, eventually it will be a global communications network, but since there's nothing there yet never mind that part."