cotton candy

[thaumobabble]

In some ways, Bella does a lot, very quickly; and in other ways she does almost nothing at all.

She does not have to be secretive - she has no enemies, her world is accustomed to the introduction of strange wonders and will not fall apart with any revelation. She revives a large number of dead people - although none of Marianne's direct ancestors - and sends them home to surprised but happy families. She renders a larger number of people torchable. She sends letters to the monarchs of neighboring realms indicating that she is available to help with any unusual difficulties in which they may find themselves, and that she would appreciate introductions to their farther-flung neighbors. That is the "a lot".

But her world is made of cotton candy, and she has no intention of dumping a bucket of water on it in the hopes of rinsing off small amounts of dust. She is not usurping her mother-in-law, she is not conquering miscellaneous other kingdoms, she is not ridding the world of all its annoying but ultimately not mean pitfalls and hazards. (She does make it a condition of rendering dragons torchable that they must not eat anyone except trespassing Orthodox wizards.) She is mostly staying at home with her wives and her daughters, reading Rose's books, chattering endlessly with Kanim about all the exciting experiments they'll conduct with the new forms of magic available.

When Jane goes down, Bella has to make sheepish announcements that her resurrection powers turned out to be impermanent; she hopes they will return but can offer no timetable.

Meanwhile, news of one specific resurrection (Howard's) has spread far and wide.

Comments

[thaumobabble]

"Oh, you want to be a magician? Good for you."

[pythbox]

"I'm going to learn all the magic," Icarin asserts.

[thaumobabble]

"Excellent. I have to be a little careful with giving out some of the kinds. I don't have infinite amounts of all of it. I can immortalize as many people as I like, put as many people on the brainphone as I want, teleport as often as I please - I can't give out the first power by myself at all, though, and the others are expensive. So I don't think you will be taking any of the fancy offworld magic home with you today, but maybe another time."

[pythbox]

"As long as I get it eventually," he says magnanimously.

[thaumobabble]

"You're immortal now."

[campanas]

"We get to live forever and try everything that is fun to try!" beams Kiawen.

[pythbox]

Icarin shrugs.

[thaumobabble]

"I'll leave you kids to play. You can brainphone me if you need anything," says Bella, and away she pops.

[campanas]

"Do you like magic too?" Carinna asks Valeria tentatively.

[pythbox]

Valeria shrugs.

"I fell in a magic spring once!" she says. "Now I can do a glowy thing."

[campanas]

"What kind of glowy thing?" asks Kiawen.

[pythbox]

"A glowy kind!"

[campanas]

"Yeah but what does it do? Do you glow? Do you make other stuff glow?"

[pythbox]

"I make stuff that glows," she says. "Kind of. I don't know. Ike, explain the glowy thing."

"She can make glowy shapes that stick to her," says Icarin. "If they come unstuck they disappear, but otherwise she can make whatever shape she wants. It's neat! But she's not supposed to do it in front of people who don't know about it, in case they get scared."

[campanas]

"Now we all know about it," points out Kiawen.

[pythbox]

"Do you wanna see?" says Valeria.

[campanas]

"Yeah!"

[pythbox]

Valeria shrugs and holds out her hands. Glowy soft-looking white stuff wells out of her palms, then merges together into a big puffy ball.

[campanas]

"Can I touch it?" asks Kiawen.

[pythbox]

"Sure!"

[campanas]

Kiawen pokes the puffy ball.

[pythbox]

It is soft and squishable like a pillow, but with a smoother surface.

[campanas]

"It's nice! If I could do it I would have it for blankets and pillows and stuff," says Kiawen. "'Lin, Carinna, you should try it!"

[carillons]

Tanalin pokes the puffy ball!

"Ooh, squashy."

[campanas]

Carinna also pokes the puffy ball.

"It's nice," she agrees.