repealing

[mind_game]

Time has passed.

Inconsistently.

Jane's network has kept all the Bells' worlds - and every other world with a Janepoint stuck in due to its being attached to Downside - in temporal sync, but when Jane spluttered for just a moment, that was shot to hell.

Peace lost three seconds, because it was where Aegis torched; after that process was complete, Jane was there again. And as soon as a door between Peace and Milliways appeared, she could sync to her ansible hub in the Belltower and, from there, to everywhere else.

Atlantis and Sunshine each stand at about a minute apiece: Shell Bell's aura and Juliet's local copy of Jarvis both enabled them to get to Milliways immediately, pausing their homeworlds as standard for occasions when someone walks into the bar. Shell Bell's the one who connected Peace.

Everyone else was running on luck.

Luckiest is Rainbow, which lost only five hours.

Next is Alethia; in spite of Sherlock's mishap, it's fared reasonably well, spending only six weeks isolated.

Syntropy's just a little worse - seven weeks.

Origin waited two months.

Eos waited three.

Thilanushinyel, ten.

Everyone else is out a decade at least. Samaria's ten years, almost ten and a half.

Aurum is out eleven.

Rêverie has been separated for sixteen years.

All the Bells - and Elspeth, who was stuck in Downside for a day and a half on her end and whose mother was very upset - are collected in the Belltower, as are two Bell-attached Sherlocks who happened to be along for the ride. They all memorize this list of numbers. Aegis replaces her earpiece. And then they all go home to notify their loved ones and staff that there's a party cooking in the Belltower.

(Shell Bell, who has no particular cause on her own account to be distressed, sends her Sherlock to invite Tony in while she refits the Belltower to suit a party of a peal of Bells and their larger-than-last-encountered families and circles of friends.)

Comments

[campanas]

"I call you Dars all the time!" Keziah says.

[manofmyword]

"You can have my whole childhood if you want it," says the Joker.

[truthwright]

"Mine too," says Kas.

[edgeofyourseat]

Alice nods.

[gunpowdergelatine]

"As much of me as you can stand," says Queenie.

[yourheartstrings]

"Likewise," says Ghosty.

[pythbox]

Sue and Jellybean are nodding, too.

[cardistry]

"I don't think mine will do you any good," says Brilliance.

[endragoned]

"Nor ours," says the demon, "but if you want them..."

[deslandes]

"And mine, for what it's worth," nods the Beast.

[yovahs_kisses]

Micaiah shrugs. "Me too, I guess."

[her_imperial_radiance]

Elspeth stares into some souls.

She has a lot of memories to stash these with, and doesn't process them all right away.

[manofmyword]

"A little more trauma for your payload," the Joker snorts.

[carillons]

"You're my sister. You're allowed."

[her_imperial_radiance]

"I'll be fine," says Elspeth. "I have a sub-self that handles memory processing and will find what I need."

[campanas]

"Good!"

[endragoned]

"Good," says Aianon. "I don't want to hurt you."

[carillons]

Damaris smiles at her sister.

[her_imperial_radiance]

"You push the envelope some," says Elspeth, "but not as much as you might guess."

[campanas]

"But you still have to be something," Céleste opines at the elder girls.

[endragoned]

"I'm not surprised," he says. "Not glad, but not surprised."

[pythbox]

"What if we just want to be ourselves?" teases Dominique.

[her_imperial_radiance]

"As long as we're comparing, you do definitely win on duration, and you're competitive on peak misery but Brilliance has you beat there," Elspeth adds. "I think emotional despair is still best embodied as a vampire with a dead mate."

[campanas]

"You are yourselves!" says Céleste.

"But you are both yourselves," says Keziah. "What if there are more? What if they have the same names?"

[cardistry]

"Wait, what?" says Brilliance. "Peak misery like - pain? I win over the guy who got tortured by demons for two thousand years?"