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

[campanas]

Now they are inside the castle!

Kiawen peers at Valeria and Icarin, trying to see if they are nice or not.

[pythbox]

Valeria is doing her best not to step on Cricket. Icarin is doing his best to be visible to as few people as possible, which amounts to imitating Cricket with his father as the target instead of Valeria.

[campanas]

"Are you okay?" says Kiawen to Icarin. "We're nice. You can tell because Carinna will talk to us!"

[pythbox]

"I've never met Carinna," says Icarin, peeking out from behind his father. "And there are a lot of you. Two small princesses and one big princess and a cat! I didn't know there was going to be a cat."

[campanas]

"He's Bella's cat," explains Kiawen. "He's soft!"

[pythbox]

"He is!" says Valeria.

"He's unexpected," says Icarin.

[campanas]

"Do you not like surprises?" asks Kiawen. "Even soft cat surprises?"

[pythbox]

"Well - they're surprising," says Icarin. "So I don't know what to think about them."

[campanas]

"Sometimes Carinna doesn't like surprises either. Like if you hide and then jump out she hates that."

[pythbox]

"That is unpleasant," Icarin agrees.

[campanas]

"I don't mind it! That's why I can test people for her even though I'm not very good at it."

[alicornucopia]

Cricket, having deemed Valeria an acceptable source of petting, solicits additions to the extant amount of petting that has gone on.

[pythbox]

"Maybe I should go and talk to Carinna and Val should stay and talk to you," says Icarin. "I am much less surprising than she is."

Val pets Cricket. "Fluffy," she observes.

[alicornucopia]

Cricket is exceedingly fluffy.

[campanas]

"Maybe!" says Kiawen. "I dunno. Tony, do you think he's nice enough for Carinna or will she cry?"

[allthebrightest]

"I think he's probably nice enough," Tony decides.

[campanas]

"Okay," says Kiawen, "come on then, I'll show you where she is."

[pythbox]

Off he goes!

[campanas]

Carinna is up in her room with a book.

She peers at Icarin warily when Kiawen introduces him, but says, "I'm Carinna," in a perfectly polite tone.

[pythbox]

"Hi," sas Icarin nervously.

[campanas]

"Tony thinks he is nice but if he's not you can shoo him," Kiawen assures her sister, and then the youngest princess skips off.

[campanas]

"So, um," says Carinna, "what do you like doing?"

[pythbox]

"...Reading," says Icarin. "And building stuff."

[campanas]

"I like reading too. I'm not sure if it's a visitors thing, though," says Carinna thoughtfully. "You have red hair. Are you a fire-witch?"

[pythbox]

"Yeah! So's my sister and both my parents," he says. "But not all my grandparents."