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

[areyouabeer]

"Three hundred years," he says. "Give or take. I'm sure about the last hundred and seventy of them, but before that it gets patchy."

[small_magics]

"This may or may not make you the oldest human in the party. I will go and look for the third one of you."

And she goes and looks for the third one of them.

[areyouabeer]

"Hi," says Luhan, raising an eyebrow. He is remarkably similar to Howlett: same apparent age, same mannerisms, roughly the same style of dress and personal grooming.

[small_magics]

"I See you. Your alts have met, and you could join them, were you so inclined."

[areyouabeer]

"Might as well," says Luhan.

[small_magics]

Pop!

[areyouabeer]

Luhan and Howlett... just kind of stare at each other.

[small_magics]

Sarion giggles a little.

[wildlymagical]

So does Lycaelon.

[small_magics]

"Perhaps you are also older than you look," Sarion ventures to say to Luhan.

[areyouabeer]

"Mm? Yeah," he says, "I'm about four hundred and thirty."

[small_magics]

"Presumably this is due to a Gift," she speculates. "I wonder if there are any older humans here. Living ones, at any rate. Older nonhumans certainly. I am not sure how old Nona is, I suppose, and Beast could be counted as a human and is roughly that old."

[areyouabeer]

"Yeah," says Luhan. "My Gift is immortality. Well, and a few extras."

"Heh," says Howlett. "How's your skeleton?"

"...Nothing special, why?"

"Mine's been... improved," says Howlett. "Back in the twentieth century. And I've got these." He makes a fist with his right hand, and three long metal claws erupt from between his knuckles, clicking audibly into place. He displays them to Luhan and Lycaelon, demonstrates that his wrist still bends, and then retracts them to a presumable housing in his forearm.

"I don't have those," says Luhan.

[wildlymagical]

"You wish you had those," says Lycaelon.

[areyouabeer]

Luhan throws him a startled glance, and then bursts out laughing. Howlett joins in.

[small_magics]

Sarion laughs, too. "Improved, and you have claws. I suppose the claws are original."

[areyouabeer]

"The claws are original, but they used to be bone. They got improved with the rest," Howlett explains.

Luhan is still laughing.

[small_magics]

"A curious form of improvement."

[areyouabeer]

"Well, my bones don't break anymore, that's nice," he says. "And I can cut through steel, although there's not much call for that these days."

[small_magics]

"I do not know what call there may have been in the past to cut steel," remarks Sarion.

[areyouabeer]

Howlett shrugs. "I've led an active life," he says dryly. "Made a few friends and a lot of enemies. I was pretty glad to outlive all the ones who had a habit of locking me up."

"I know the feeling," says Luhan.

[small_magics]

"It would seem that Lycaelon is the odd one out of the three of you."

[wildlymagical]

"Yeah," he says, "I know. Apparently there are a lot of template things that I missed out on because the magic of this world doesn't work that way."

[small_magics]

"Apart from the Knight-Magery, which I suppose was as close as you could get."

[areyouabeer]

"And Knight-Magery is...?" says Howlett.