(retroactive)

[her_imperial_radiance]

It is after the very first Bellparty.

"Dad never comes to these," Elspeth tells her grandma. "Too many strange Bells. If there were strange Edwards, Mama might have trouble with them too, but there aren't so far. But I can reintroduce you now, if you'd like."

Comments

[queensidecastle]

Someone should give her a cookie.

[her_imperial_radiance]

Elspeth can in fact eat cookies! She can even keep talking while eating them without violating any commonly accepted etiquette guidelines. Is someone going to give her a cookie?

[prima_sequentem]

Yes.

[her_imperial_radiance]

Elspeth noms the cookie.

[prima_sequentem]

Elspeth is an adorable granddaughter.

[her_imperial_radiance]

Presently she is an adorable granddaughter who has finished summarizing. "Those are the highlights. There's always more detail to be had, of course."

[queensidecastle]

"Whew," says Chris. "Okay. Now, do us dead people have anywhere to live, or do I have to sleep in the creepy empty room?"

[her_imperial_radiance]

"There are spare quarters for people with humanlike needs in the wolf village," laughs Elspeth, "we can show you."

[queensidecastle]

"Great."

[her_imperial_radiance]

To the wolf village! Both of these people are Downside-style dead, so Elspeth doesn't bother with imprint warnings. "Do you want to share a place or have your own?" she inquires on the way.

[queensidecastle]

Chris looks at her niece.

[prima_sequentem]

"Share."

[her_imperial_radiance]

Elspeth puts them in a charming little house, which is stocked with miscellaneous amenities and edible nonperishables, and also appears to have been serving as extra fridge space for someone who really, really likes eggs.

[prima_sequentem]

"Why the eggs?"

[her_imperial_radiance]

"Eggs are very popular among the high-metabolism set," laughs Elspeth. "Someone must have stashed them here. You can eat them, you can wait for whoever it was to run out of their own fridgeful and hand them over."

[prima_sequentem]

"Noted."

[alicornucopia]

It's a while later the next time Edward and Lizzie are by themselves together.

"Bella wants to know if I want my human memories stuck back on like she did with hers. The trouble is I don't know what I'd be getting. She did - she had reams of notes on her childhood - I have almost nothing."

[prima_sequentem]

"How much do you remember? I can fill in most of the rest," she says. "Your father didn't have much to do with raising you."

[alicornucopia]

"Almost nothing. Faces, half faded out. I knew your name, and that I was a Junior before I started using 'Cullen'. I could probably find the place we lived, if I went to Chicago. I have - automatic answers to standard autobiographical questions, and not all of them are attached to the various cover stories. Beyond that, nothing much."

[prima_sequentem]

"Well, let's see... you had no grandparents," she says. "At least three of them were dead when you were born, and I wouldn't have known my father if I passed him in the street. Not that I was allowed to tell you that, because Edward Sr. had very definite ideas about which parts of my life were acceptable for polite company. You did have an uncle on your father's side - nothing on mine except Chris, until she died. Is that the kind of information you're looking for?"

[alicornucopia]

"Some of it," says Edward. "Yes." He half-smiles. "Bella is also curious about whether my historical tendency towards 'melancholy philosophizing' is really about being a vampire or if that's just a shape it took."

[prima_sequentem]

"Melancholy philosophizing. Yes, this is a tendency I recognize," says Lizzie, smiling.

[alicornucopia]

"We had an argument about souls, once, that she found very exasperating. I suppose it's all been rendered quite moot; it has been more than demonstrated that vampires and humans appear in the same place and it couldn't reasonably be called Heaven."

[prima_sequentem]

"I never previously believed in an afterlife, but I'm happy to be proved wrong."

[alicornucopia]

"Did I pick up all my opinions on the subject from Carlisle, then? And attach my own melancholy philosophizing flavor?"