intelligent nametags

[thaumobabble]

Jane alerts everyone to the existence of a new Bell, the nature of her wives and children, and the presence of her mother-in-law.

She stands ready to move in anyone who wishes to attend this new party.

Glass stands ready to receive them.

Comments

[autokinetic]

"Well, yeah, I didn't know you moved here," says Aegis.

[thaumobabble]

"I'm not going to overthrow the king of Linderwall either!"

[autokinetic]

"What, seriously, you lucked into adequate hereditary monarchs, like, everywhere?"

[thaumobabble]

"Is that so bizarre?"

[autokinetic]

"Yes, what the hell, is your entire world made of cotton fucking candy?"

[calendarofcrime]

"No."

[autokinetic]

"I don't mean literally," says Aegis, rolling her eyes.

[thaumobabble]

"...I suppose it's certainly possible that this is a particularly high-quality world."

[calendarofcrime]

"The question as I understood it was, does this world fail to contain terrible people who do terrible things? The answer is no."

[autokinetic]

"Does your nifty aura thingamabob tell you the cotton candy ratio around here?" Aegis asks Glass.

[thaumobabble]

"If it did, that would be much faster than reading a lot of offworld history books... I think I'd need to see more worlds," says Glass. "Just a sec - I'll take a quick tour of the safe-to-visit ones - Jane -"

Glass disappears.

[calendarofcrime]

[thaumobabble]

Glass is back five minutes later.

"To a first approximation," she says to Steel, "compared to everywhere else, our world is made of cotton fucking candy. Although Samaria's not too awful."

[calendarofcrime]

Steel snorts.

[thaumobabble]

"I'm serious. I don't have a lot of fine detail, but those places - especially Sunshine, eugh - are not nice, and I can't really blame the other Bells for expecting me and my closest circle of friends to be the only remotely acceptable people within a stone's throw. That having been said, Aegis," says Glass, "this place is, yes, made of cotton candy, and so are the overwhelming majority of monarchs, and they can go on being so as far as I'm concerned; I have relatively minor work to do. Poor Juliet, yikes, that world..."

[calendarofcrime]

[autokinetic]

"Gonna name the place Cotton Candy?"

[thaumobabble]

"No, I am not. Honey, are you okay?"

[calendarofcrime]

"I - worry - that someday, somebell will overthrow their home government unnecessarily, and none of you will notice."

[autokinetic]

"Does it sound to you like it's happened so far?" inquires Aegis. "I mean, Glass didn't take one look at us and say 'whoop, better depose Marianne', did she? And Aurum and Atlantis totally needed the upheaval."

[calendarofcrime]

Steel shakes her head.

[thaumobabble]

Glass takes her wife's hand.

[calendarofcrime]

"If it happens," she says to Aegis, "I expect you will not notice."

[autokinetic]

"Well," says Aegis, "okay, what do you want us to do about it?"

[calendarofcrime]

"Be sure you understand the situation before you apply your expectations to it."