many people move here to start families

[cross_and_bow]

Bella is hanging out in a Jarvis - the familiar one - handwriting a nonaggression proposal-slash-bribe. Has to be handwritten. Damn fussy demons. At least it's okay for her to conjure rather than personally harvesting the weird ink she's supposed to use.

Comments

[cross_and_bow]

Bella clenches her teeth and nods. "What'd you have in mind? I like my crystal ball, but it's not simple to interpret."

[eversomuchfun]

"Try it anyway," he says. "We can all three give it a go."

[cross_and_bow]

Bella chews her lip, but then blinks away and back, bearing her crystal ball - apparently she still doesn't want Soph in a Jarvis. She holds it in her hands.

[pythbox]

It shows her a pretty blonde woman taking a bath.

[cross_and_bow]

"Today is Voyeurism Day, apparently." Bella hands Sherlock the ball.

[eversomuchfun]

Sherlock sees a handsome man taking a shower.

"Apparently so," he says, and passes the ball to Soph.

[cross_and_bow]

Bella's not happy about Soph handling her birthday present, either, but she compromises this far.

[keyed_up]

The ball turns bright, bright green in Soph's hands.

"Huh," she murmurs. "I don't know what it means..."

[eversomuchfun]

"The fellow in the shower worked at the Sunnydale hospital," says Sherlock. "Perhaps we should find him and apply questions. Or better yet, spy on him from afar."

[keyed_up]

"You recognized him, or was there, like, a clue in the crystal ball?" Soph asks, offering Bella the crystal ball casually till she remembers what's going on and flinches.

[cross_and_bow]

Bella snatches it away and frowns at Soph.

[eversomuchfun]

"I recognized the shower. I suppose you could call that a clue."

[keyed_up]

Soph applauds.

[cross_and_bow]

Bella is deeply unsettled.

[eversomuchfun]

Sherlock sighs.

[cross_and_bow]

"If you were -" Bella is checking her coin-sorting wish. "...I'm missing coins. I'm missing coins, I know how many I had."

[eversomuchfun]

"If who were what?"

[cross_and_bow]

"If she were my sister she would have coins on her, I would have given her some, and I have fewer than I should, but I never gave anybody coins, but if she's immune to hexes and up she can't have a sorting wish and she'd have a bandolier, and I wouldn't have made it invisible to me."

[keyed_up]

"I don't carry a lot of them," says Soph slowly, and she reaches for the small chain that she wears under her shirt. "Just a few for emergencies. I can't leave the world, you're always around in case I get in trouble..." She shows Bella the coins.

[eversomuchfun]

"If Juliet's memories do prove correct, I don't think this can possibly be the work of a coin," says Sherlock. "Coins are powerful but they're piss-poor at narrative, as far as I can tell; I would be noticing contradictions already. I'd believe enchantment first, and local magic before either. But I shudder to think how much power a local witch would have to put in to get this kind of far-reaching effect. And then there is the question of motive."

[keyed_up]

"But - but if Bella remembers right - I exist, look, look at me existing, Sherlock," says Soph, "how could she be remembering right?"

[eversomuchfun]

"You clearly do exist," says Sherlock. "My judgment is suspended on the question of whether or not you existed half an hour ago."

[keyed_up]

"But - but - but I remember it. There's - mud on the floor in the front hall from where I came in after I got the mail. There's my bed in our room. There's - I know you and you know me, you've known me since March, I still have the laser pointer you gave me, I made you listen to me talk about episodes of House for an hour and a half after I found out who you were, you got me my magic belt for my birthday -"

[cross_and_bow]

"I remember having my room to myself, and not having to worry about any Sunnydale-dwelling family members apart from Charlie, and driving to school alone - not to mention stopping in the morgue to stake all the corpses first! - and coming back from the dead to confront my murderer and protect the next Slayer and show Charlie I wasn't dead, but not you -"

[keyed_up]

"I didn't even know you'd died till after you came back! Charlie couldn't figure out how to tell me in the, what, an hour - and half the time I staked the corpses for you and the other half of the time I stood watch - and you were the one who convinced me to move there! Because of Mom and Phil, you said, they needed space, we could just go live with Charlie!"