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

[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."

[telesonorous]

"The magical notebook thing is definitely peculiar," says Helen. "And I'd kind of have to be cavalier about tucking Kal away if we weren't separated, especially if I lived somewhere that people mostly didn't know about daemons, but I guess I'm a special case."

[dark_light]

"Yeah. I'd expect the same thing if Juliet got a daemon; a lot of big-cat daemons here are kind of shrunk to travel size but hers was anything but when she got an illusion. But Shell Bell has a smew, and yet." She shrugs.

[telesonorous]

"What's a smew?"

[dark_light]

"It's a kinda duck." Isabella produces an illusion of Neptune.

[telesonorous]

"Ooh, he's pretty," says Helen. "Soph said that Juliet picked a name for her tiger and that means she might maybe hypothetically get one, but she doesn't know why she hasn't yet or what might get her to."

[dark_light]

"I have a guess," says Isabella after a moment.

[telesonorous]

"What is it? Unless it's private. Then forget I asked."

[dark_light]

"If I'm right you probably shouldn't tell Juliet's Sherlock, but I don't think she'd care if you knew."

[telesonorous]

"Okay, I won't tell," she says.

[dark_light]

"She doesn't have one, so acquiring one would be about what she could do with him that she couldn't otherwise; he looks terrifying but she doesn't live in a place where that gives her any advantage in, say, a fight - which is particularly relevant to Juliet - because there aren't any other daemons for him to engage with and anyone else she meets at home won't know that they mustn't touch him, or if they found out they'd have an entirely incorrect reaction to the information. She has no strong incentive to separate, so she doesn't expect to be able to send him on errands without inconvenience and unpleasantness she could more easily skip. The only thing she could do with a daemon that she can't without is send him to snuggle up to her Sherlock. I think she's waiting to see if Steph will touch her."

[telesonorous]

"Oh," says Helen. "That does make sense."

[dark_light]

"After a fashion, yes, but I suspect Sherlock would feel pressured if he figured it out. If he hasn't already."

[telesonorous]

"Well, maybe he doesn't know about the name. Or maybe he's trying not to," she says hopefully. "Because aren't they supposed to be really good at figuring things out?"

[dark_light]

"Sherlocks are extremely good at figuring things out, yes."

[telesonorous]

"Goes with the name," says Helen. "Which is also peculiar."

[dark_light]

"Yeah, they're a weird case. Some of them actively model themselves after the book character - well, the version found in their worlds' literature, without a Stephirashal attached - but some of them just sort of happen."

[telesonorous]

"Other worlds are funny that way. - Wow, and of course their books wouldn't have daemons in them either, I hadn't even thought of that."

[dark_light]

"I imagine it must make casting actors for television shows and so on a lot easier."

[telesonorous]

"No kidding," she laughs.