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

[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."

[lexicality]

"I mean, I guess I could get mugged? But I'd have to be in a bad neighborhood or something and even if I took a semester of - weapons? Seriously? Okay, a semseter of knife-fighting, then I couldn't probably beat off a mugger, it'd be way safer to just give him my purse and cancel my credit cards and write off the fifty bucks. If I didn't have magic, I mean, now I could just teleport away and be like 'dad come arrest this mugger'."

[pythbox]

"...yeah, okay," says Celo, "I'm seeing it. In my world, though? Magisterius University has a weapons policy. As in, unless you have an exemption, you have to carry a magical weapon ready to draw if you're on campus and not indoors. And if you stray off the warded paths at night the school's not responsible if you get eaten by a ghoul or whatever."

[lexicality]

"Eww, ghouls. We don't have those. Wait, someone made a policy that requires an alt of Bella to carry a sharp object, seriously, that doesn't sound very safe, she's okay chopping carrots but not if she has to walk around at the same time."

[pythbox]

"Oh - Aether has boots to help her with the walking around part," he says. "And obviously she's got all that handy Bell magic now. But yeah, the weapons policy kinda failed her there."

[lexicality]

Lexi snorts. "But yeah, I guess if there's ghouls and stuff all over it makes sense to try to teach people how to not get... ghouled. What do they do, do they eat you?"

[pythbox]

"Yep! It's pretty nasty," Celo says cheerfully.

[lexicality]

"Anyway we don't have ghouls, just humans. And Devices but they are not instigating a crime spree on Earth, I don't know about other places."

[pythbox]

He snorts. "Yeah. Brill's info is a little out of date there."

[lexicality]

"No kidding, what is it with Bells and older men?"

[pythbox]

"We're all really hot?" suggests Celo.

[lexicality]

Lexi snorts. "I'll grant you don't look centuries old, not a one of you. What would that even look like, I don't know."

[pythbox]

Celo giggles. "Yeah, the kind of people who live to be centuries old aren't usually the kind who'd show it."

[lexicality]

"Exactly. I'll probably just look seventeen forever, I think seventeen is a good look on me."

[pythbox]

"Huh," Celo says contemplatively. "I never thought about it, but I could change how old I look now, if I wanted. Nymphs don't really age; I've looked this way since the first time I came out of the ground."

[lexicality]

"You just sprouted whole?"

[pythbox]

"Pretty much! I mean, I don't literally grow these bodies like plants," he says with a gesture at himself. "They just kind of... happen. Not exactly appear, it's not like a teleport, more of a process than that, but not anything observable and definite like sprouting."

[lexicality]

"These? Are there like four of you walking around?"