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

[luminous_regnant]

Golden is peering dubiously at her child.

"Do you want to bring up an infant Joker?" she asks.

[her_imperial_radiance]

Elspeth thinks about that.

"I think," she says slowly, "that it could be fun. If I do it right. And I think I have a better chance at doing it right than - well, anybody else at this party who'd take him."

[manofmyword]

"Yeah," says the Joker, "I bet you do."

[her_imperial_radiance]

"I could use advice," Elspeth adds. "...Also for some reason the admin wanted to give me Jane's judgesight, and I let her, so if any of you want to add to my store of memories so I have more to go on than intermittent magic utterances, I could use it. Also I suppose I shouldn't go on calling him by the name on his birth certificate so I will have to think of something else and could benefit from input."

[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.

[her_imperial_radiance]

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

[endragoned]

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

[her_imperial_radiance]

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

[endragoned]

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

[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."

[cardistry]

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

[her_imperial_radiance]

"Well, you didn't spend two thousand years at it, so I'm not sure if you'd have been well advised to trade if that had been an option, but your worst parts were more painful than his worst parts," says Elspeth.

[cardistry]

"Damn," marvels Brilliance.

[her_imperial_radiance]

"Anyway," says Elspeth, "the baby one has not been rescued yet, and it's not unusually terrible yet but it's going to get that way any week now, so what else do we need to know before I go get him?"