Isabella Marie Swan ✝ &quot;Juliet&quot;

"And since I am arguably dead already, I'm not sure it's quite the same. But I can choose another if you prefer."

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"How do you mean, you're dead?" Shell Bell asks. "You walk around, don't you?"

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"I don't really mind," Juliet tells Sheromeo. "And whether vampires are dead is a pointless matter of technical quibbling. They walk, they eat, they think - some of them - but they don't properly respirate and their hearts don't beat so some people apparently consider it meaningful to declare them 'not alive'. Probably contributes that for most of them the transformation involves a period of inactivity followed by personality change."

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"Also that for all biological purposes I am an unusually lively corpse," Sherlock points out.

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"But you eat. Corpses don't eat," says Shell Bell.

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"You eat," agrees Juliet. "You heal from injuries. Do your hair and fingernails grow?"

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"Golden's kind do, but slowly," volunteers Shell Bell, "if you haven't gotten to Stella's notes about her."

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"I drink blood," he says. "And tea. Liquids in general. Solid food and I don't get along. My hair and fingernails do grow, yes. At the normal human rate, even."

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"It makes about as much biological sense to declare you an ambulatory talking fungus as to declare you a dead human," says Juliet. "Mushrooms are not expected to have pulses or functional lungs, after all, and they're alive."

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"Mushrooms do not traditionally spend time as humans and then go through something remarkably like dying before they become mushrooms," says Sherlock.

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"No, you're not a mushroom, you are a vampire, but the question of whether a vampire is alive is only about as interesting as the question of whether a clone is a real person."

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"But the question of whether we are arguably dead is decided, since here we are, arguing it."

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Juliet laughs.

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The door opens.

"What's all this, then?" says a crystalline Bell voice.

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"We're arguing over whether or not I'm dead," Sherlock says cheerfully. "Perhaps you'd like to join us."

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"You must be Golden!" says Shell Bell brightly.

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"Golden," muses Golden. "Well, I suppose I am, at that, if I'm not being Bella. I might have gone with Cullen, but apparently my reputation precedes me?"

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"Yep," says Juliet. "Stella left us notes about you." She picks up the book, in which she has just gotten yea far, and holds it up for Golden's inspection.

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Sherlock observes.

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Golden takes in the entire page of notes almost instantly.

"She really doesn't have a very high opinion of Edward, does she," she remarks.

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"Do you have a high opinion of her boyfriend?" inquires Juliet, putting the book back in her lap.

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"He threw a tantrum in my throne room," says Golden, adjusting her crown. "So not particularly."

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"Me and Juliet here both have Sherlocks instead," says Shell Bell contently. "I'm Shell Bell. I'm a mint like Stella, but I don't have any of my big coins with me so I can't help Juliet - Stella didn't write about minting you, but she did give you some coins, didn't she?"

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