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

[keyed_up]

"Okay, that one was better, nice double-take, what's got you in such a mood though? Did you not make me any cocoa?"

[cross_and_bow]

Bella doesn't know what's going on, but she doesn't like it. She doesn't have her Mercury palace yet - it's definitely a low priority now that she can't siphon coins from Aurora and Stella - but she has the whole Earth to play with. A flex of her teleportation power lands the pair of them in the middle of some random Canadian wilderness.

"Who are you?"

[keyed_up]

"...Where are we? What're we doing here? Are we playing some kind of, I dunno, scenario, was Sherlock supposed to brief me -"

[cross_and_bow]

"I don't know who you are and I found you in my bedroom. Explain."

[keyed_up]

"I'm - I'm Soph. I'm Sophia."

[cross_and_bow]

"I don't know anyone named Sophia."

[keyed_up]

[...Sherlock? Bella's gone nuts.]

[eversomuchfun]

[In what way has Bella gone nuts?]

[keyed_up]

[She - she doesn't know who I am, I thought she was fooling the first few times she asked me who I was and what I was doing in her room but I think she's serious. She's interrogating me in some random - place - it's cold as balls - she says she doesn't know anyone named Sophia.]

[eversomuchfun]

Sherlock sighs.

He teleports to the current location of Bella and Soph.

"Dear Juliet," he says, "describe to me the problem."

[cross_and_bow]

"Do you know who this is? Because I don't, but she was in my room anyway, and there was an extra bed in it, and stuff that doesn't belong to me, and I know I haven't been home as much since I stopped needing to sleep but I'd think Charlie'd tell me before taking in a boarder."

[keyed_up]

"I'm Soph," says Soph plaintively.

[eversomuchfun]

"She's your fucking sister, love."

[cross_and_bow]

"I don't have a sister. I have never had a sister. I am an only child, like all the other Bells except Aurora!"

[keyed_up]

Soph starts rubbing at one of her eyes unhappily.

[eversomuchfun]

"You are not and have never been an only child," says Sherlock. "And if we're going to have this conversation, I suggest we have it indoors."

[keyed_up]

"She was for, like, a year," says Soph.

[cross_and_bow]

Bella looks skyward. "What, you want to go talk about this in a Jarvis, I have no idea what she is, because she's not my sister, I have a completely coherent set of memories from where the perfect recall kicks in all the way through ten minutes ago with no sister, frankly I don't want her anywhere near a being I like that physically can't torch while we can't get Downside."

[eversomuchfun]

"And I have a perfectly clear set of memories from the day I met you that include your sister, and I assume your sister can say something similar, and here she is. Until ten minutes ago you've never had a problem acknowledging her existence. Something has changed, but before we find out what I am not going to advise treating Soph like a hostile fucking demon."

[cross_and_bow]

"Of the two of us I am not the one likelier to be affected by mind-affecting magic!"

[eversomuchfun]

"Fine, then let us extend this beyond the two of us," he says, and brainphones Tony and both Jarvises, with Soph and Bella included in the call.

[Indulge me for a moment: how many siblings would you say Juliet has?]

[toblameforit]

[...Is this a trick question?] says Tony. [One.]

[poeticterms]

[My sentiments exactly,] says a Jarvis.

[What on Earth is going on?] says the other.

[cross_and_bow]

[I am an only child! I always have been! None of you are mentally opaque, something must have happened to you.]

[poeticterms]

[We've met Soph,] says a Jarvis. [You can watch the video yourself. I don't know of any spell both powerful and sophisticated enough to alter my recordings. A mind-affecting spell might alter my personal memories, but the data I have on file is a separate matter, and I'm verifying the records as we speak.]