friendly door

[her_imperial_radiance]

Elspeth gets a door.

It's been so long she reels for a moment, and then she throws herself forward and almost lands in a peal of Bells. Yes, there's Shell Bell, there's Juliet and Aurora, there's Glass, there's some Matilda she hasn't seen before.

"Elspeth!" exclaims Glass.

"How long has it been?" Aurora asks.

"Seventeen years. Shell Bell - I need you to help me find Harley," says Elspeth.

Comments

[incanted]

"...Covered. Not an overwhelming safety margin, but covered, and she's not hostile."

[thaumobabble]

Glass is looking at the world. "I do not like this world," she concludes. "It's not as - the thing Sunshine is as Sunshine, but it's not nice."

[cross_and_bow]

"Let's hear about Tab," invites Juliet, in tones that do not match her general hellgoddessy-ness.

[her_imperial_radiance]

Elspeth, meanwhile, acts on Aurora's information and kills a hex to yoink Harley into her arms.

[pythbox]

Whatever Aelise was about to say is interrupted by the air catching on fire everywhere it touches the incandescent figure in Elspeth's arms.

[cross_and_bow]

Juliet's aura slurps up the fire; she's very bright, for a moment, but then it calms down in among the usual harmless licks of flame that dance on her person. Nothing catches; it is merely warm while her aura performs.

[her_imperial_radiance]

Harley. It's me. With Bells. And she works her witchcraft on the vestiges of what Chelsa did to him.

[salus_populi]

Aelise looks at Harley (who has by now finished torching and is back to an ordinary temperature) with startlement, then relief. Then she shakes her head and looks at Juliet.

"Tab. Mehitabel Marika Coscoroba. I met her eleven years ago, when she was six. And if I'm going to say anything more about her, I'm going to want some assurance that you're not quite as hostile as you look." She glances at Lizzie when she says this.

[prima_sequentem]

Lizzie opens her hands slightly in an understated shrug.

[pythbox]

Harley clings to Elsie and makes muffled sobbing noises.

[her_imperial_radiance]

Elspeth holds him and she works.

[cross_and_bow]

"Weren't you going to do the talking?" Juliet asks Lizzie. "Does she mean she wants me to turn my aura off?"

[giftedandtalented]

Tab writes to Aelise: Would you please ask them if they can grab me down there like they did Harley?

[salus_populi]

Aelise glances at the screen and says, "Tab would like to be included in this conversation, if you wouldn't mind fetching her. And since she is not currently buried in the sun, it shouldn't be quite so spectacular this time."

[prima_sequentem]

"Turning your aura off would be conducive to reasonable negotiations," says Lizzie. "She means that she wants to know what we're doing here, what we want, and that we're not going to harm her or Tab or anyone else who might drop into the line of fire while we're talking it over. And there are probably some dicey secrets in the mix that she would rather we not mention to anyone without her say-so."

[cross_and_bow]

Juliet withdraws her aura. "Tab's safe if she's a Bell like it sounds like she is, probably safe even if she's not, and if she is a Bell this is her jurisdiction and we are just here to hand her the ability to do whatever she pleases with the place; if you're lucky, she likes you." She snaps her fingers and spends a pentagon, and here is Tab.

[luminous_regnant]

"In the interests of full disclosure, Elspeth is not a suitable repository for secrets."

[giftedandtalented]

Here is Tab, indeed. The auras didn't come through on the security feed; she blinks a lot, when she gets a look at them. "Wow."

[incanted]

"All this and more can be yours for nine ninety-nine," Aurora mutters under her breath. "Should any subset of us duck into Milliways?" she adds at normal volume.

[salus_populi]

Aelise is now looking analytically at Harley.

[prima_sequentem]

"Good question," says Lizzie. She is looking analytically at Aelise.

[salus_populi]

Aelise says, very definitely to Harley: "Chelsa is retired."

[pythbox]

He bursts into tears and clings to Elspeth.

[her_imperial_radiance]

"Just retired?" mutters Elspeth.

[luminous_regnant]

"World's Downsideable," reports Golden in an undertone.