dark_light | we are not truly immortal

After Glass's party is over with, Amariah and Kas go home.

Amariah fetches down their alethiometers.

"It's about time I took care of Alethia's afterlife, whatever it may be," she says quietly. "What can the alethiometer tell you about what I'll find?"

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

truthwright

"I wouldn't translate it that way, exactly," says Kas. "It was more like - the part of using a coin where you wish on the coin, that's kind of like you're telling it what you want, right? In the afterlife, the coins won't be able to hear you do that."

From:

lifes_sake

"...Huh."

From:

she_sells_seashells

"When are we going? And do you want me along?" Shell Bell asks.

From:

dark_light

"As soon as we know who's going, I think. Elspeth in reserve, I can go, Cam will if Grace works out, you will - who else, though, not everyone's going to want a daemon. Jane, please ask all the Bells to see what sort of daemon they'd get and consider coming along? With all the relevant information."

$mind_game: (fractal)$

From:

mind_game

Jane passes this along.

From:

luminous_regnant

Golden would not prefer to accompany the expedition, although if no one else is willing she will do as Shell Bell plans and leave Edward with her daemon for the trip. She reports, in case anyone is curious, that she would have a small golden dragon.

From:

bellfounding

Pattern would have a firefly and doesn't want to instantiate him, thank you.

From:

self_composed

[Hey Alice,] says Stella, [Amariah's gearing up to go after her afterlife. The alethiometer says anyone who goes there will get a daemon wish or no wish, and will have to separate from it too. I don't think I want to go, but apparently a square will show me what I'd get if I did, want to see me wish it?]

From:

edgeofyourseat

[Sure!]

He teleports to wherever she is.

From:

self_composed

Stella wishes on a square.

Her result is a lap-sized dragon, red like her coins and broad-winged and with a peculiar effect like lava-flows between some of his larger scales.

"Nifty," murmurs Stella. "Tempting. But separation sounds nasty."

From:

edgeofyourseat

"You could always just go to Alethia and get a daemon anyway," Alice suggests. "I might want to go along. How nasty is nasty?"

From:

self_composed

"I don't think I want a daemon just to have a daemon, but I can always go later. Elspeth can show you what it was like for Kas to separate; Amariah compared with hers and said it was the right amount of nasty but a different kind of nasty," says Stella. "The alethiometer says it will be just as nasty but with a mitigating good part if someone who you'd let hold your daemon does that while you're separating. I'll go with you if you want. With this little cutie safely warded off, though." She dismisses the dragon illusion.

From:

edgeofyourseat

"If you'll snuggle my daemon I'll definitely go," he says.

From:

self_composed

"All right then. Jane, please notify the Alethia contingent," laughs Stella.

From:

autokinetic

The various laughable handlers of War and Peace with whom Aegis largely plays along, in addition to putting them on shuttles to get from place to place, schedule them time to sleep, for some reason. It is one of those times when Jane's message arrives, and Sue's in the room at the time.

"Huh," says Aegis, and she wishes up herself an illusion-daemon. She gets a large orangey-colored flying squirrel. "I think I'll pass. For myself, anyway."

From:

pythbox

"I'll go if there's a reason to," says Sue. "I've already got Ivy. I guess it'd be handy if I could link everybody, huh?"

From:

autokinetic

"Probably, yeah, you probably wouldn't even have to go into the afterlife and separate from her to link people."

From:

pythbox

"Okay. So I'll go and hang back with everybody's daemons," says Sue.

"And I'll snuggle them if they get lonely," says Ivy, instantiating for this purpose.

From:

autokinetic

"'Course you will," says Aegis, scritching Ivy on the head. "Thanks, Jane."

From:

thaumobabble

Glass is in the middle of reading the girls a bedtime story (they can all read, at this point, but still like being read to) when she gets the notification. She now has enough processing power to continue reading without skipping a beat, and to also inform her wives of what's going on. [Some of the Bells are hanging back as a reserve force of sorts, if they don't particularly want daemons but wouldn't much mind them and have someone to look after them during the separation required to get into the Alethian afterlife,] she says. [If one or both of you would be willing to do that I think I'll be in that contingent.]

From:

allthebrightest

[Of course!] says Tony.

From:

calendarofcrime

[Of course,] says Sherlock.

From:

thaumobabble

[Also apparently a square suffices to see what one's daemon would be. I'm rather curious.]

"The end," she tells the girls, and she kisses them each goodnight, puts them in their respective rooms and tucks them in, and goes to where Sherlock and Tony are and wishes up an illusory daemon.

"Aww," she says of the tiny flying squirrel.