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

[pythbox]

"Sharing is nice!" says Icarin. "What sorts of things did they share?"

[thaumobabble]

"The immortality power, for one thing, and some other stuff I can do like teleporting and the brainphone," says Bella.

[pythbox]

"What's the brainphone?"

[thaumobabble]

[It's this,] says Bella. [That's how Carinna told me I should come here to immortalize you and your dad.]

[pythbox]

[Nifty!] says Icarin. [How's it work?]

[thaumobabble]

[It's a kind of magic that this world didn't use to have until my friends brought it here. It works by wishing, but not like the kind of wishes a genie gives.]

[pythbox]

[What kind of wishing is it instead? And where are your friends from if they're not from the world?]

[thaumobabble]

[They're from another world. The wishes work entirely by magic with no person involved except the wisher.]

[pythbox]

"There's more worlds?" says Icarin. "How many? How do you get there from here?"

[thaumobabble]

"A lot. I don't know how many, but at least eighty-eight." (Chronicle was eighty-fifth in Downside numbering, Alethia and Syntropy lack Downside numbers, and some Bells were on their way to check out a new one when Jane broke.) "There are usually two ways to get from one to another, but one of them is broken right now. The other way is to wait for a door to turn into a door to a bar called Milliways, that can touch all of those worlds. I met my friends when Kiawen found a door like that."

[pythbox]

"Woooow," says Icarin. "That's amazing!"

[campanas]

"The friends are like people here but not!" says Kiawen. "I went and I found a Sherlock who wasn't Sherlock and she didn't even know who I was because her and her Bella and Tony don't have any kids. And her Tony is a boy! And there are more of all of them and there's so many Bellas and Sherlocks and Tonies and other people too."

[pythbox]

"...Are there any of me?" wonders Icarin.

[thaumobabble]

"I didn't meet any," says Bella. "But sometimes I can tell anyway..." She crouches down to his eye level, and lets her aura out (attention-super-extra-magical-magician!), and squints. "I think there might be more of you. And of your sister too; you look pretty attached, I don't think you'd find an Icarin without a Valeria... Although there might be alts of Valeria who don't quite have Icarins, I'm not sure, I would need to look at more of you."

[pythbox]

"You are really super extra magic!" says Icarin, staring back at her with wide eyes.

[thaumobabble]

Bella laughs and puts her aura away. "Yes."

[pythbox]

"I want to be that magic," Icarin declares.

[thaumobabble]

"Maybe you should start with regular magic from this world," suggests Bella gently.

[campanas]

"Sometimes Bella or Kanim gives us magic lessons!" says Kiawen.

[pythbox]

"I'm already going to be all the magic from this world," says Icarin.

[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."