sweeping changes

[mind_game]

Jane has finally been updated in all of the "extra" worlds with no Bells, Jarvises, or other routine visitors to the peal, and she is conducting template sweeps in them.

[Hey,] she tells all the Jokers and all the Bells. [There's a Joker in world number twelve who wasn't there before I crashed. Can't find him online at all, though.]

Comments

[her_imperial_radiance]

"Jake doesn't, especially for a wolf," says Elspeth, shaking her head, "on his own behalf. If someone goes after me he has a problem."

[pythbox]

"Hard to say if a twelve-year-old Joker would hit that button," says War.

"Mm," says Corona.

"Well, depends," War concedes.

[her_imperial_radiance]

"What on?"

[pythbox]

"He doesn't wanna hurt anybody, but he wants to make somebody hurt him," says Jellybean.

"And we don't know how far he'll go to get it, because we don't know how far he'd have to," says Corona. "Or what it's been like for him, how he's feeling—"

"He could be another one of me," says Jellybean, "and you'd be pretty much fine, I was all right by twelve."

"Or he could be another one of me and you'd be in for it," says Corona.

[manofmyword]

"I know where I'd put my money," says the Joker.

[her_imperial_radiance]

"Maybe Jake had better be part of this conversation. I don't know what else to do with a twelve-year-old Joker. Although I suppose if he doesn't want to go with me something else will have to be thought up. Jane, can you get my wolf please?"

Elspeth's wolf is got. She holds his hand and explains, silently.

Jake winces. "So, worst case scenario where he's trying to get under my skin through my imprint, what's he going to do to her?"

[manofmyword]

"Worst case?"

[gunpowdergelatine]

"What's the first thing you can think of that'd piss you off?" says Queenie.

[her_imperial_radiance]

"Uh," says Jake. "I don't know. A twelve-year-old human can't really physically hurt her... even if he got ahold of some vampire's tooth or something he'd have to have a way around the wards."

"I'm sufficiently full of distressing memories that it would be hard, but if he could think of something sufficiently awful to say to me that I cried," says Elspeth, "Jake would explode."

Jake wraps his arms protectively around Elspeth. He is about three times her size, so this is pretty cute.

[gunpowdergelatine]

"Jokers," says Queenie, "are really good at buttons."

[pythbox]

"...But if he knows you, he'll like you," says Harley to Elsie. "He might not want to make you cry."

[manofmyword]

"He might," says the Joker, "try it anyway."

[her_imperial_radiance]

"It would at least be difficult," says Elspeth. "I can't think of anything, which means I'm probably not broadcasting it to anyone who pays attention."

[manofmyword]

"Mm, that's good," says the Joker. "Promising."

[her_imperial_radiance]

"But - even in the capital away from the wolves a lot of the vampires around have mates. And things they're sensitive about. And I don't think it would be a good idea to plunk him down in the middle of nowhere."

[manofmyword]

"Yeah," says the Joker. "Populated is better."

[endragoned]

"But the opposite is not impossible," Aianon observes.

[deslandes]

"As long as there is someone," says Beast.

[her_imperial_radiance]

"Me, and where there's me there's Jake, and presumably visitors, at least until and unless he drives them all off."

[pythbox]

Corona snorts.

"Okay," says Harley. "So are you gonna do it?"

[her_imperial_radiance]

"I'll go talk to him, anyway," says Elspeth. "Maybe he'd rather be dropped off in Southeast Asia with three hundred and fifty thousand baht and a few new language proficiencies. I'm not just going to pick him up and wander off like I did with Harley. I hope it's not a bad idea for me to tell him things about how you're predicting he'll behave, because keeping secrets is close to impossible for me."

[pythbox]

War shakes his head. "It shouldn't be a problem."

"What are we gonna call him?" says Jellybean. "He might not have a nickname picked out, but he sure won't let you use the wrong one."

[gunpowdergelatine]

"Felicity," Queenie suggests.

[her_imperial_radiance]

"Unless he has something else in mind, Felicity will do," chuckles Elspeth. "Okay. Jake, we're all right?"

He sighs. "If he does go off on you and it's bad, can we call over - I don't know, who's really impossible to ruffle? Carlisle or Esme. Didyme maybe. Call over a babysitter and go off for a while."

"Yes," says Elspeth. "I'm sure Grandma and Grandpa will be happy to help."

"Then I'm fine."

"Okay." She's still holding his hand; she kisses it, and he pops back to Aurum. "Jane, I'm ready."

And then Elspeth is in world number twelve, and then she is invisible, and then she is where the local Joker is.

[inhispockets]

Late afternoon in Chicago, a boy of indeed about twelve bolting down the street with his long black hair whipping in the wind. The way he's running, you'd think someone or something would be after him, but nothing seems to be. His face is somewhere between focused and frightened, and more than a little familiar.