we can live wherever we find ourselves

[dark_light]

Isabella takes awhile catching up with her parents, and the queen.

She is back at the house late that night, not tired but a little ragged. Path alights on her shoulder when she reappears.

She inspects her house.

"I'm going to keep this place, since people sometimes use it as a landing pad to get daemons, and sometimes I want to be able to receive visitors from within the world," she decides, "and a castle in the afterlife won't do that, but I'm going to go build a castle in the afterlife, who wants to see it?"

Comments

[dark_light]

"Quite. Especially since the star only lasts about a week, did you hear that story?"

[telesonorous]

"I didn't!" she says. "What happened?"

[dark_light]

"Minus - Juliet's Sherlock, from Sunshine - came over for a visit, and while he was here Jane went down for the first time. After he'd been here about a week he woke up in the middle of the night with a genet. She went by Subtrahend, till I told him what the canonical Sherlock Holmes's daemon was called - didn't like Stephirashal entire but she took Steph. They weren't thrilled, though, either one."

[telesonorous]

"Why not?"

[dark_light]

"Well, she wasn't on purpose, and Sherlocks have some mixed feelings about existing, so existing more was an unpleasant surprise."

[telesonorous]

"Oh. Poor Minus. Are they okay now?"

[dark_light]

"I don't have up-to-date information," confesses Isabella. "All kinds of things could've changed since I last saw him, I don't even know how long it was in Sunshine."

[telesonorous]

"Well - I met Soph, and she said somebody from her world got rid of their daemon and then got her back later. But I didn't ask her any questions about it. I'm pretty sure it was the same person, though."

[dark_light]

"That would be him, yes, nobody else from Sunshine ever had one in the first place." Isabella shudders slightly.

[telesonorous]

"Yeah. People with no daemons are only slightly unsettling, but - " She shakes her head.

[dark_light]

"It took me some getting used to. The first time I walked into Milliways I called everyone a zombie, for a while."

[telesonorous]

"I hardly notice most of the time, and then something reminds me and it's weird all over again. But I'm getting used to it."

[dark_light]

"Steph didn't like it that it made me more comfortable around Sherlock when she existed."

[telesonorous]

"...I don't get it," says Helen. "Why?"

[dark_light]

"It was a reason to continue existing, with which she had issues."

[telesonorous]

Helen thinks about this.

"Steph is confusing," she concludes.

[dark_light]

"Very confusing, yes. If she's stopped and then started again that's promising."

[telesonorous]

"I guess. But she still - stoppped." Helen shivers.

[dark_light]

Isabella nods. "I suppose it must have seemed like a reasonable option to them at the time."

[telesonorous]

"I can't see how."

[dark_light]

"No, me either, but we're the odd ones out, no one else has daemons as a fact of life."

[telesonorous]

"Yeah," she sighs. "It's so - peculiar."

[dark_light]

"Yep. Very much so. Some of my alts and some of your dad's have acquired daemons but I don't think they think of them in quite the same way as Alethia natives with them do."

[telesonorous]

"What other way is there?"

[dark_light]

"It's hard to characterize. Most of what makes me think this is that they're a lot more cavalier about tucking them away. I don't remember Kas ever doing it with Petaal at all, and I only do it when it's crowded or something. Also, Cam's daemon is also his magical notebook, so there's that."