we are an underrated tourist destination

[cross_and_bow]

Bella has just been to visit the Mikleeeeeeeee. It went well, after she flared aura and shouted abuse at the crown prince. (Demonstrating this form of "heedless confrontationalism", it was explained by a quarter-Mikleeeeeeeee girl James found for her to talk to, an essential part of the species' diplomatic process. This held up under lie-detection, but Bella found a few examples via pastwatching before actually doing it.) They have a treaty; they're going to get back to her with revisions they'd like made to their dimension and they're going to end the five hundred year "human season".

Now she's between tasks, hanging out in one of the Jarvises.

Comments

[grabsthebutt]

The Siathe scenery is still gorgeous.

The dirt road becomes a road of glittering black gravel that crunches under their feet.

[cross_and_bow]

"We almost at someplace more inhabited? Eminently stealable flora aside, I'm mostly interested in the local people."

[grabsthebutt]

"Yeah, it's not that far a walk," says Val.

[cross_and_bow]

"Cool. If it were a very long walk I might want to teleport or at least fly."

[grabsthebutt]

"But then we'd leave poor Ike behind!"

[cross_and_bow]

"Does poor Ike," Bella says, raising an eyebrow at Ike, "have a fear of teleporting and/or flying that was not disclosed before I totally teleported us all to this dimension?"

[grabsthebutt]

"He can't fly," says Val, rolling her eyes. "And he doesn't like it when I carry him."

[newtimov]

"It is undignified," says Ike.

[cross_and_bow]

"I didn't know either of you could already fly. In my mental image I was fixing that with magic for my convenience."

[newtimov]

"...Do you often give superpowers to people you barely know?" inquires Ike.

[cross_and_bow]

"I don't have a Superpowers: Five Cents stand at the end of my driveway," shrugs Bella, "but on top of my systematic projects, anything that crosses my mind stands a good chance of getting improved some as long as I'm thinking about it. I would be a little responsible about it, quiz you about whether you'd be flying under any circumstances I would find inconvenient, I'd check my magic supply and hmm about it some, but yeah, that totally sounds like something I would do, Val can tell you that earlier I was casually volunteering to render your mom able to go outdoors on Earth without causing riots. She didn't take me up on it though."

[newtimov]

"Well, yeah," says Ike. "But if you want to make me able to fly, I will totally take being able to fly! Assuming it doesn't come with any magnificently inconvenient side effects like having big obvious wings all the time, but I bet it doesn't."

[cross_and_bow]

In reply, Bella lifts into the air, twirls, and sets down on her tiptoes before resuming walking. "Nothing like that. What would you do with being able to fly? 'Cause if you want to be able to turn invisible too, that might be a little much."

[newtimov]

"I hadn't really thought about it beyond maybe 'keep up with Val'," he says.

[cross_and_bow]

"Is that an ithue thing? You smoosh some wings out of nowhere and fly around?" Bella asks Val.

[grabsthebutt]

"Yep!"

[cross_and_bow]

"D'you get a chance to do that much?"

[grabsthebutt]

"Not on Earth!"

[cross_and_bow]

"That's a pity. Well, sooner or later I'll have all the demons sorted out and then I can start being openly magical in front of the humans. A bunch of my alts are already doing that for this reason or that; none of them come from Sunshine-family worlds with all these thousands of sapient species to learn about and handle. I think next in number of species after here is Glass, and hers you could maybe not count on your hands but you could if you borrowed a couple other people's. Or, Angela might have a lot of kinds of aliens, but she's going very slow." She hmms and looks Ike over. "Do you think you'll even like flying or do you just want to not be the twin who can't fly?"

[newtimov]

"Flying is cool," he says inarguably.

[cross_and_bow]

"Hmm." Juliet checks her coin-sorting wish. She's more than topped up on coins - Aurora is very free with the largesse, especially to the Bells who have only Sherlocks at home, and there was that recent distribution after Brilliance made the tenners which came with plenty of small stuff. "Not going to be irresponsible about public magic use, perform unkind pranks on the unsuspecting, use your power for evil, etcetera? Answer in a complete sentence, I have lie-detecting magic."

[newtimov]

"Um, no, why would I do those things," says Ike.

[cross_and_bow]

"Nefarious motivations, presumably." She pats him on the head and goes ahead and spends the hex. "Let's fly."

[newtimov]

He giggles.

[grabsthebutt]

Val shrugs.

Her whole body turns into a ghostly glowing silhouette, with her alien iron skeleton suspended inside, and a pair of enormous ghostly glowing wings unfold out of her shoulders - moving right through her clothing as though it isn't there - and flap once to drag her into the sky.