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]

"Maybe I will!" says Keziah. And she closes her eyes and tilts her head and then says, "No, Mommy says it would still be too conspicuous."

[pumpkin_pie]

"Maybe you could keep him somewhere out of the way," says Aedyt. "My mum gave me an asteroid for my unbirthday once. I keep a lot of my stuff there that won't fit anywhere else."

[campanas]

"But then he might be lonesome!" says Keziah.

"Unbirthday?" says Céleste.

[pumpkin_pie]

"Hybrids grow up too fast to just have birthdays once a year," Aedyt explains, "so I have unbirthdays every other day of the year instead, and as long as it's my unbirthday people can get me presents whenever they feel like it."

[pythbox]

Dominique laughs.

[campanas]

"My Rainier wasn't because of a birthday or an unbirthday or any holiday at all. I just asked for him," says Céleste. "I guess it was not my birthday then."

[pumpkin_pie]

"Then he can be an unbirthday present if you want him to be!"

[campanas]

"I guess he is!"

[pumpkin_pie]

Aedyt smiles.

[campanas]

"So who are you? Besides your name?" asks Céleste.

[pumpkin_pie]

"I'm your cousinoid! My mum's the Joker, he's an alt of your dads, and my dad's Nathan, the Imperial Minister of Temporal Affairs in Aurum."

[campanas]

"Ooh!" says Keziah. "We don't have any regular cousins. Mommy is an only child. Daddy's not but Uncle Nathaniel doesn't have any kids."

[pumpkin_pie]

"You have an Uncle Nathaniel? That's weird," she laughs.

[campanas]

"He's Daddy's little brother," says Keziah. "He's pretty okay."

[pumpkin_pie]

"I guess I've heard of him, but Mum never told me his name. Is he fun?"

[campanas]

Keziah thinks about this.

"He's nice," she finally says. "But he's not really fun."

[pumpkin_pie]

"Well, that's not bad," says Aedyt. "Better than the other way around."

[campanas]

"I guess," says Keziah. "So that's our uncle. And there are some family friends who're like aunts and uncles! Alleluia and Caleb, and Serah and Daniel, and Elisha and Noa."

"We had an uncle. He wasn't nice, though," says Céleste.

[pythbox]

"And we've never met him," says Dominique.

[pumpkin_pie]

Aedyt does not ask 'then how do you know he wasn't nice?'. She has heard of the Voice template.

"I have an Auntie Addy who is definitely not my aunt and also kind of fits the 'fun but not nice' description," she offers.

[campanas]

"Why isn't she nice?" asks Céleste.

[pumpkin_pie]

"Some people just aren't. She's okay most of the time, though."

[campanas]

"Most of the time?" asks Keziah.

[pumpkin_pie]

"She can be kind of creepy once in a while."

[campanas]

"Oh, that's not good," Keziah says.

"Like how?" Céleste wants to know.