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[cross_and_bow]

Jane tells everyone what happened regarding the Alethian afterlife.

And little tidbits about surrounding events, too.

Bella has been hanging out in the Jarvis she knows better, mentally composing a treaty for the Vxaabli demons, and as she hears the story she slowly, slowly tenses up like a spring.

Comments

[eversomuchfun]

Sherlock observes this reaction.

[cross_and_bow]

His Bella declines to say anything about it.

[eversomuchfun]

"Dear Juliet," he says, "if tension can be described as coiling, you look like someone's winding you onto a spool."

[cross_and_bow]

"Did you know that there can be ten-pointed coins?" she asks; she knows better than to expect this to distract him for long, but it might divert him briefly. "Brilliance made a bunch."

[eversomuchfun]

"I did not."

[cross_and_bow]

"We're weighing who needs how many. I'll probably get a few. A single one was enough for Amariah to make a brand new subworld in the Alethia worldsheaf that she's got root access to almost like the admin does over Downside; could be handy for sequestering demons who have objections to going offplanet or whatever."

[eversomuchfun]

"Interesting notion."

[cross_and_bow]

"And she's got harpies running the exit; they do a thing sort of like judgesight and she's got a couple other inconveniences set up so the living aren't mobbed by the dead."

[eversomuchfun]

"Very tidy."

[cross_and_bow]

"Yeah. The harpies were a problem originally, the judgesight thing they do comes with an optional 'also the target feels like utter shit about it' thing. The alethiometer wasn't very specific before the group went in, and one of them got Shell Bell."

[eversomuchfun]

"That sounds unpleasant."

[cross_and_bow]

"It sounds like it really was, yeah. And teleporting doesn't work in the old land-of-the-dead - you can get out, but not to any destination within - so Amariah and Cam and the Jokers who were along couldn't go find her when she told the link she found a harpy and then didn't say anything else."

[eversomuchfun]

"Has this situation been resolved?"

[cross_and_bow]

"Yes. She got fetched out and took a nap and then she felt better."

[eversomuchfun]

"What are you avoiding telling me?"

[cross_and_bow]

"I knew you were going to ask that eventually."

Bella sighs.

"It was Pearl who went and got her, and as previously mentioned going into that place entails leaving a daemon outside of it, and Pearl's daemon continues to exist and apparently kept preening Shell Bell's hair."

[eversomuchfun]

[cross_and_bow]

[eversomuchfun]

"Do you have any feelings on the subject you would like to share, love?"

[cross_and_bow]

"...For what value of 'would like to share'?"

[eversomuchfun]

"Any value that means you will do so once invited to."

[cross_and_bow]

Juliet draws her knees up to her chin and hugs them. "I don't think there's anything you could reasonably do with details about my feelings on the matter."

[eversomuchfun]

"Know them."

[cross_and_bow]

"There's that."

She closes her eyes.

"I wasn't comparing with the Jokers who have daemons because - they are obviously not a comparison point. I've been near enough Petaal to know that she wouldn't mind me petting her, let alone Amariah. But it's - a thing Bells do, seems like, to compare with each other where comparisons are at all applicable, to want to keep up with each other and learn why if we can't. I'm not sure why Pearl's daemon's apparently so well-adjusted compared to Steph, since presumably Pearl has a soul and everything. But I have a guess about why he'd preen Shell Bell where Steph didn't even want to meet me, and I hate it, and it's a past event, not some ongoing - trait, condition, circumstance, I can't undo it, and I hate that. That I can't undo it, make it never have happened - that I keep getting reminders."

[eversomuchfun]

"You have a partly incorrect guess," says Sherlock. "If that were the only factor, she would've gone for Tony. She didn't. The main reason she didn't want to meet you is that she was wildly uncomfortable with her own existence and any amount of interacting with people was too much for her."