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

[newtimov]

He giggles. "Other worlds are like that! I have an alt named Icarin. But he is not here because his parents don't want him traveling to strange universes by himself."

[snowandsparks]

"This place definitely qualifies. I did not quite believe Grandma and Grandpa's stories about the Archangel-Elect and all her faraway friends till I actually got here."

[newtimov]

"I'm told they're not usually so, um..." He gestures helplessly at the living architecture. "...Giant plant floating in space... ish?"

[snowandsparks]

"Is that what - I was not even told that part," laughs Lucas. "In space? A plant in space."

[newtimov]

"Yes! Have you been outside? It's very - space. Out there. Where I have been."

[snowandsparks]

"No, I've been staying indoors, someone told me there's big - scaly things, flying around in the airspace out there. I do not know what they are or how to politely find out."

[newtimov]

"They are dragons!" says Ike. "They're local. And friendly. I haven't met any, but my sister has and she got along fine. My sister can fly," he adds as a partial explanation.

[snowandsparks]

"So can I," laughs Lucas. "Your sister would... probably not be an angel, so why can she fly?"

[newtimov]

"She can fly because she's an ithue!" he says. "Ithuetse can sort of shapeshift. Val makes herself wings. It's very pretty."

[snowandsparks]

"Huh, that sounds convenient if she can just make them when she wants them. I can't ride horses, the wings spook them. Or swim."

[newtimov]

Ike peers at Lucas's wings. "Ye-es," he says, "it does sort of look like swimming would be difficult, especially if those aren't waterproof. Actually, of the two of us, Val is the only one who can swim. We both sink like rocks, but she can grow fins."

[snowandsparks]

"They're okay in rain," says Lucas. "I can fly in a storm just fine - more comfortable to go above the clouds, but I don't have to. In the water, though, there's just no way to fold them up so they don't wind up with more water on top of them than under them and then they'd drag me down. I haven't tried it, this is my engineer grandpa explaining it to me."

[newtimov]

"Hmm," says Ike. "Weirdly, it makes less sense after the explanation. But I think I still have sort of a mechanical intuition for it... I mean, wings aren't designed for swimming, not that kind anyway, you are not made of penguins."

[snowandsparks]

"Made of what?"

[newtimov]

"Penguins! They're a kind of bird that lives in very cold places and swims instead of flying, so they use their wings as flippers."

[snowandsparks]

"I'm not sure if we have those."

[newtimov]

"You might not," says Ike. "Wow, that's weird. I mean, worlds without approximately three thousand species of demon I can understand, but I don't know what to do with a world without penguins."

[snowandsparks]

"Maybe we do and I just haven't heard of them? I think we're missing a bunch of common animals, for - some reason."

[newtimov]

"Interesting! I wonder why. Do you have a bunch of common animals that the rest of us don't, or are you just generally undersupplied?"

[snowandsparks]

"So far I haven't mentioned anything except angels and gotten a 'we don't have those'. Uh, horses? Cows? Cats? Rabbits? Chickens? Hawks? Mice? Doves? ...Salmon?"

[newtimov]

"Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, and yes," says Ike. "That's really interesting. What do the rest of us have that you don't?"

[snowandsparks]

"Penguins, apparently. Demons. Dragons, I guess, if those are an animal? We also don't have that vaguely goatlike thing I saw wandering around with a single antler or whatever it was coming out of its forehead."

[newtimov]

"That would be a unicorn," says Ike. "I don't think we have unicorns in my world either. I also don't think we have dragons, but I wouldn't be astonished if I found out that we actually did have one or both of those."

[snowandsparks]

"Also I definitely don't know about any animals that live in my world but not on my planet," Lucas adds.

[newtimov]

"And your planet... is not Earth, right? So actually if you have an Earth in your world and you don't live on it, it would make a lot of sense if your planet had some subset of Earth species, because whenever humans made the trip in the first place they probably brought a bunch with them but it would be really difficult to bring every single species on Earth to some new planet. There are a lot."