we travel far and wide

[dark_light]

It has been - a few days. There are long silent snuggles with Kas. There are tentative chats with Helen, which go encouragingly. There are difficult and uncomfortably revelatory conversations with her parents. There are heaps and heaps and heaps of things to catch up on, read, check, look into, so she can regroup, reappear, resume work.

She hasn't slept with Kas since coming home. She loves him, and she'll be feeling like it eventually, but not right away.

She's sort of restless after a few days of not having sex, though. Let's see. There's a couple new Jokers she hasn't tried, although one is not shaped in an Amariah-amenable way. And maybe that's a little too close to what she's waiting on, anyway.

Pattern's boyfriend isn't a Joker and is amenable to being loaned out, she has heard.

[Hey, Jane...]

Comments

[mind_game]

[Sure. Checking.]

[Yep, there's one!]

[tearingup]

[Really?] says Ripper. [A young one or an old one? Or can't you tell?]

[mind_game]

[Well, I could ask, but the sweep protocol doesn't give me that kinda detail. Lemme see if he or she's got an Internet footprint I can connect up.]

Checking, checking.

[tearingup]

Well, Alethia does contain a punk rock band called Wretched, with a singer called Ripper. The cover of the first album is remarkably similar, even.

[mind_game]

[Yep, here he is, here's his copy of Wretched, he is still going by 'Ripper' in band-related material, found his birth records and his driver's license though and it's a match. Twenty-one, pied kingfisher - would he not want me sharing her legal name either?]

[tearingup]

Ripper winces. [Look, I know you can see anything anyone has ever put on a computer, but that doesn't mean you should. We ditch our names for a reason.]

[mind_game]

[It's not that I can, it's that I do, I am those computers. It's significant attention that's optional - or being on them at all, like Syntropy. Don't send me to look at things you don't want me to pay attention to,] huffs Jane. [Okay, secret pied kingfisher legal name. He doesn't have it in his website bio as anything.]

[tearingup]

[Yeah, I didn't know how you'd be checking. Won't be making that mistake again.]

[mind_game]

[The checking for the existence of the template at all is just sending whitespace by text brainphone,] Jane says. [That part's very unintrusive.]

[tearingup]

[Great. Thanks.]

[mind_game]

[No problem. Should I say hi to him?]

[dark_light]

"What do you think?"

[tearingup]

"Maybe I should say hi to him," says Ripper.

[dark_light]

"If you want to come to Alethia you need a star, unless you want a kingfisher so your kingfishers can chat. And people from Alethia will have reactions to you ranging from Kas's 'you are a different way to be people' to my initial 'this bar is full of ZOMBIES, AAAAAH', and I don't know where the local Ripper will fall on this continuum. But you are welcome if that's understood and you still want to."

[tearingup]

"Well. Okay, maybe I shouldn't. But, hm - I feel like dropping in on him myself is the best way to get all the shocks over with as fast as possible without souring him on the whole idea of," he waves a hand vaguely, "things."

[dark_light]

"You can, it's just more complicated with Alethia than it would be if we were talking about someplace more like, I don't know, Eos, Rainbow, whatever. Although - consider the fact that I'm a mythical figure, have been for longer than he's been alive, would that help or hurt if I just went up to him myself?"

[tearingup]

"...Could work," he says. "Thing is, he's not going to like it if you just teleport in front of him and say hi, and I don't think he'll think much of the brainphone as a surprise either. Actually..."

He pauses, contemplating something.

"Those stars, how long do they last?"

[dark_light]

"A little shy of a week is how long it took in the only case one's been allowed to wear off. Why?"

[tearingup]

"Should be fine, then. I just thought, if he's got the name and he's got the band he's probably got the best friend too," he explains. "And I know Rayne'd be all over introducing two of me. But it might take us a while to get it all sorted out."

[dark_light]

"Well, you are, as I said, quite welcome to visit the world."

[tearingup]

"Right," he says. "Jane, mind popping me back home for a minute so I can tell Pat what's going on and pick up a star from the Jokers?"

[mind_game]

[Sure.]

Pop!

Pat's location is one of the places Jane can put him, and she's not doing anything private at the moment, so that is where he goes.

[bellfounding]

"Hey you. Have a good time?"

[tearingup]

"I really did." He kisses her. "And then Amariah found one of me in her world, so I'm gonna go say hi." [And I'm going to introduce myself to his Rayne first, because I bet that'll go much better, but going much better is probably going to mean having a lot of sex with both of 'em, and I figured you'd want to know.]

[bellfounding]

[Oh boy. Thanks for the warning. You want a star?]