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]

"Maybe I could even get one with my name on it," he snorts.

[lexicality]

"What, is it impossible to spell or something?"

[pythbox]

"Yeah," he says, "pretty much literally - I mean, when I need a name on paper or out loud, I use Celosia because that's what grows in my garden, but my actual name is... kind of a psychic impression. Another nymph thing. Lemme see..."

He stands there looking thoughtful for a moment, idly doing tricks with a coin that he wasn't holding a second ago. His aura comes out.

His aura says that he is a god. He glows with the faintest touch of sunlight, and smells like a field of grain on a summer day, and is somehow warm to look at, and he is unquestionably divine. Helpfully, the aura also advertises his friendly regard for people in general (including Lexi in particular) and currently positive mood.

After a few seconds, the aura fades and an illusory nametag floats in the air near his shoulder. It proclaims his template to be Joker and his world to be Materia in the usual fashion, but the name entry is just a smear of vibrant colour, which when looked at with the intent to read produces Celo's name. It turns out that his name was part of his aura, but it's much more intense in the original. (The coin he was fiddling with is also back where it came from, wherever that is.)

[lexicality]

Lexi's eyebrows go up when his aura comes out. "Keen aura. My Bella's is kind of boring compared to some of 'em. Also, keen name."

[pythbox]

Celo grins. "Thanks! I love my name. I'm the only Joker who likes the one they started with."

[lexicality]

"How come?"

[pythbox]

"Well, most of us hate ours because we got them from shitty people one way or another, and Harley doesn't even remember his parents but he still likes the one he grew up with and not the one they gave him, but nobody gave me mine, it just came with being me. And it suits me."

[lexicality]

"I guess that's different then. I think my whole name is just too long. Al-ex-and-ra. I played with a bunch of ways to shorten it when I was a kid but I like 'Lexi' best."

[pythbox]

"It's pretty nice," Celo says amicably.

[lexicality]

"Thanks. So how are you liking being plugged in to the awesome interdimensional community of People Bells Like?"

[pythbox]

"Being plugged into the awesome interdimensional community of Jokers in particular is fucking amazing," he says, grinning. "And I'm pretty happy about the rest of it, too - I moved my garden to the Enchanted Forest, which is probably going to cause me some trouble with bureaucrats but at least means that nobody can claim to own me anymore."

[lexicality]

"Somebody used to be able to claim to own you?"

[pythbox]

"Well, yeah. Every nymph has a field, and somebody owns the land your field is on, and once in a while it turns out that technically speaking that makes you their property. Usually not a big concern, because most nymphs don't leave their fields in the first place, they just hang around doing the nymph thing. But me—" he gets a distant look in his eye for a moment, then shakes his head and resumes his interrupted sentence "—when my garden was claimed by the city, they decided to send me to school. So now I'm double-majoring in martial combat and domestic arts."

[lexicality]

Lexi doesn't ask about the moment's distant expression; that looks like a can of worms to her. "Yeah, that sounds like a Joker kind of double major all right. You could qualify for college without having ever gone away from a garden?"

[pythbox]

He shrugs. "Sure, why not?"

[lexicality]

"Well, assuming I go to college instead of living on Bella's enchanted planet playing video games all the time, they're gonna want to know how I did in high school and stuff."

[pythbox]

"There's different ways to qualify," he says. "Tests and stuff. A lot of the students at MU are from places where high school is not really a thing."

[lexicality]

"Huh. And you can just major in fighting, so I guess that's different too."

[pythbox]

He laughs. "What, can't you in your world?"

[lexicality]

"No? You can't even major in, like, football, that's extracurricular."

[pythbox]

"Football?" he asks.

[lexicality]

"It's a game, with a ball. There's tackling in it so it's kind of fighting-ish."

[pythbox]

"So kinda like skirmish, I guess. You can't major in skirmish either. But man, what's the point of a school that won't even teach combat?"

[lexicality]

"Most people don't get into fights a lot? I mean, you can take a martial art, I think some schools will even offer those, but mostly people go and learn to be veterinarians or engineers or art historians or something."

[pythbox]

"Well... most people don't major in martial combat, I guess, but there's enough," he says. "When you say most people don't get into fights a lot, do you mean, like... your world is just generally safe enough that it's not worth teaching most people to use a weapon? I haven't been getting that sense from the other Jokers, but maybe I wouldn't; Jokers go where the trouble is."