who will be coming?

[small_magics]

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.

Comments

[pythbox]

"Oh," says Tianthonet. "Dragons start bigger than that, I think."

"I've seen our eggshells," says Sherial. "Much bigger. But not bigger than a grown human."

"And we're nowhere near full size yet," says Tianthonet.

"But then we have much farther to go," says Sherial. "And some dragons are just small. Ansharil is."

[allthebrightest]

"That makes sense! I'm glad you had a good talk," says Tony, hugging her again.

[exactlyright]

"I am too!" Hug hug hug.

[keyed_up]

"Is he? How big? I've never seen him being, uh, himself."

[allthebrightest]

Hug hug!

[tearingup]

"I'm serendipitous?" inquires Ripper.

[thaumobabble]

"Oh, not very, but just a little -" Glass holds her fingers pinching a little bit of air. "You're right next to Pattern, who is perfectly modal in terms of her - original setup - or I don't think I'd be able to tell. You have small but noticeable effects from being from Origin in particular, and she doesn't, maybe because she was dead while the Joker and that bat person were up to what they were up to. You're less serendipitous than - Merryweather, say, who was set up to interact in a specific way with Aegis - if he has other setups it's with people I haven't gotten a look at. Juliet is actually serendipitous relative to Giles; he is exactly where he would have been anyway and she showed up in that place."

[tearingup]

"Huh," says Ripper.

[jellyinthemix]

"And yet," says Giles, "I was sent to Sunnydale because the Council had such trouble finding her. I suppose, metacausally speaking, if not for Juliet there would have been some other reason?"

[thaumobabble]

"Yeah. Juliet's also the only Bell who lives in Sunnydale - maybe the only one who has one, though it's a smaller town than Gotham so we'd have to actually look it up instead of just knowing. Sunnydale was collecting the next Slayer, far enough in advance for her to be born there; if it hadn't been her it would have collected whoever it was instead."

[pythbox]

"He's... Ansharil-sized," says Tianthonet.

"Just about large enough to comfortably carry one Bondmate," says Sherial. "So not all that much bigger than we are."

"We can both carry ours," objects Tianthonet.

"Yes, but not as easily as Ansharil could. And yet he still doesn't have room to pack on a dozen children like Ancaladar still occasionally complains about."

[jellyinthemix]

"The notion of Sunnydale collecting Slayers doesn't surprise me in the least," says Giles.

[keyed_up]

"...Dragon children or human-oid children?"

[thaumobabble]

"There you go. It's the sort of place that collects things. It collected you, but not because of Juliet in particular."

[jellyinthemix]

"Right. Where is Juliet? I expected her to turn up and laugh at us at some point."

[bellfounding]

"I could go get her, if you are finding her absence problematic."

[pythbox]

"Elf children," says Sherial.

"Two thousand years ago, in Jermayan's time," says Tianthonet. "There was a war on, and the elves wanted to send their children to a special fortress where they'd be safe, and of course the best way to go was by dragon, but Ancaladar didn't like having - what was the phrase - "

"An infestation of tiny passengers," Sherial supplies.

[she_sells_seashells]

Shell Bell giggles.

[jellyinthemix]

"No, not at all," he says, grinning.

[bellfounding]

"I'm sure she's made at least some token effort not to laugh."

[thaumobabble]

"I'm sure there's plenty else to amuse her than the motions of templates through neighboring worlds."

[pythbox]

"It's really strange how the Dark keeps coming back every thousand years," says Tianthonet.

"It wasn't always that way," says Sherial. "Before Jermayan, Ancaladar slept through ten thousand years of peace."

[keyed_up]

"Well, I bet Sarion's going to arrange for there to be more of it. She's a Bell."

[jellyinthemix]

"She was inordinately entertained by the existence of Ripper," says Giles. "Someone should really tell her we've found another one, if she doesn't already know."

[thaumobabble]

Glass peers over the railing into the crowd. "She's talking to Amariah. It could easily come up that way."