we are not truly immortal

[dark_light]

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?"

Comments

[endragoned]

Her beloveds love her.

[small_magics]

She loves them back!

[endragoned]

Love love love.

[small_magics]

And traveling.

[jovahs_heiress]

Angela relays everything Jane tells her to Micaiah. She is a tentative volunteer for a second, bailout wave. She would have a tern if she had anything.

[yovahs_kisses]

Micaiah does not think he wants a daemon of his own, but he will hold his angel's if she needs him to.

[jovahs_heiress]

All right then. Angela relays this information to Jane.

[bellfounding]

After Jane tells her that some Jokers are going on the expedition for reasons of their own, Pattern notifies Queenie and Ghosty.

[yourheartstrings]

[Could be fun,] says Ghosty. [Count me in.]

[bellfounding]

[Jane'll take you if you show up at the point.]

[yourheartstrings]

[Okay.]

[gunpowdergelatine]

[Do we have any idea how long this is gonna take?] says Queenie. ['Cause if I'm losing my snugglebuddy for a week, I want another one.]

[bellfounding]

[No clue. It's an unfamiliar afterlife, the alethiometer was cagey as hell. I have a decent coin stash, if you need to go visiting someplace.]

[gunpowdergelatine]

[Mmkay. Cross that bridge when we come to it, I guess.]

[yourheartstrings]

Ghosty manifests at the Janepoint.

[mind_game]

Jane contentedly serves as interdimensional transit.

[lifes_sake]

The final tally is:

Amariah, definitely going. Kas, also definitely going.

Cam, going if his experiment with Grace works out.

Shell Bell, going. Pearl, hanging around to hold her duck-thing. (It turns out that this sort of duck is called a smew.)

Alice, going, recreationally; Stella, not going but hanging around for his daemon.

Ghosty, going recreationally.

Sue, going to link everyone but not intending to separate from Ivy.

Aianon and Ansharil, showing up just to see what will happen, and Isibel along with an anti-raccoon wish in place for moral support.

Elspeth, Glass, Golden, and Angela as backup; Juliet as emergency backup. Elspeth is hanging out in Alethia as the most likely necessary backup and because she was already there. Jellybean has gone home.

[edgeofyourseat]

When Alice appears in Alethia, no daemon appears with him.

[yourheartstrings]

The same with Ghosty.

[endragoned]

The same with Aianon and Ansharil.

[dark_light]

"...That's weird. Sue got one this way," Amariah says.

[lifes_sake]

Cam returns from depositing Grace in a safe place some hundred yards away from the clearing around Amariah's house. He assesses the situation and asks the alethiometer, "Why don't the three Jokers who just arrived have daemons?"

[truthwright]

"It is not in their nature," says the alethiometer.

"Let me," says Kas. He asks about the three of them separately.

"Okay, so Alice's power is apparently stopping him from getting a daemon. Aianon and Ansharil aren't the right species, and Ghosty's just... not. I think it's kind of confused about Ghosty," he says. "I mean, the world is confused about Ghosty, so the alethiometer is too. And the world being confused about Ghosty is why she's not getting a daemon."

[lifes_sake]

"Okay then," says Cam. "I wonder if they can comfortably enter the afterlife." He asks the alethiometer.

[truthwright]

Of Alice, the alethiometer says, "He cannot enter."

Of Ghosty, the alethiometer says, "There is no precedent."

Of Aianon and Ansharil, the alethiometer says, "If one goes, the other must stay."