in a heap of people

[she_sells_seashells]

They go home after a couple of days, without incident. The colors in Bell's hair are fading, albeit incompletely.

A bit later, when there is not the question of whether Sherlock can accompany her unnoticed, Tony finds a door and in they go.

Other Sherlock - whether this is their other Sherlock or some other other Sherlock, Bell cannot be immediately sure - is in the main bar area. Bell waves!

Comments

[she_sells_seashells]

Shell Bell chooses this moment to walk in. "Hi Sherl- oh wow! Hi! I'm Shell Bell!" she exclaims when she spots the other her.

[self_composed]

"Hi!" replies Bella. "I've nicknamed myself Stella in your little book. I was about to ask - do you happen to know a cooperative masochist?"

[she_sells_seashells]

"...That's a weird question," says Shell Bell. "I don't think so..."

[sicaria]

"Ah," says Sherlock.

[self_composed]

"...Ah?" says Stella-Bella inquisitively. "I ask because my magic system, inconveniently enough, involves turning pain into wishes. I can be the sorceress-empress of the stars with a moon palace and all that good stuff because I have him." She gestures at Alice; the gesture turns into a grab and she kisses his cheek. "Unfortunately, one of the very short list of things that I cannot wish for effectually involves changing the rules about where wishes come from."

[edgeofyourseat]

Alice beams and hugs her.

[sicaria]

"I expect I could manage," says Sherlock.

[self_composed]

Stella peers at her. "I'm not ruling it out, but you aren't one of Alice, and I'm still frankly astounded that he occurs in nature," she says after a pause. "Wishes come in sizes. I think Shell Bell can probably manage without stars - I was planning to for a while - but she'll want at least some hexes, and those are serious business. I have only ever made one, and it was when I was hit by a van and broke most of the bones in my body. If Alice hadn't fixed me up, it's possible I never would have woken up and dubious if I could have walked again or regained the full use of both hands, even so. Does that sound like the sort of thing you could manage - regularly?"

[sicaria]

"Not with delight, perhaps," she says after a moment. "But if necessary."

[self_composed]

"There is another possibility, especially if Shell Bell objects to you being not-delighted, which is the distasteful subject of mental editing. Your entry says you don't have the mental opacity thing," Stella says to Shell Bell. "So I could - but even if you don't have the power you probably have the dislike of things fussing with your brain, I imagine that's the first thing you'll wish for. If you want and Sherlock doesn't mind I can just boost whatever Sherlock has to start with."

[she_sells_seashells]

"I'm... not mentally opaque," agrees Shell Bell. "There was this holiday here, once, and it involved... nonconsensual mind-altering drugs - run if you see red and pink and lace and this shape everywhere -" she gestures. "And they mind-altered me and I did not like it, but Sherlock, you didn't like it either..."

[sicaria]

"I didn't like it because it confused me," she says. "I am not sure what I think of being edited for amplified masochism."

[self_composed]

"Well," says Stella, shrugging, "I can also just go spend several hours in one of those bedrooms there with Alice and come out and dump a lot of complimentary wish-coins in your lap, but I think you'll want a supply of new ones, and given the time oddities of Milliways I will not always be able to respond promptly to requests for top-ups. I am happy to help, though. I have an embarrassment of riches. My magic is fucked up but I have a way to use it really, really well."

[sicaria]

"What do you prefer?" she asks Bell.

[she_sells_seashells]

"I... don't know," says Shell Bell. "Can you tell us more about how the magic works, Stella?"

[self_composed]

"That nickname's going to take some getting used to," chuckles Stella. "Yeah. It's good that you've got people working with you already, because the minting power is a little picky about where the pain comes from. I could wish myself a square's worth of pain, but I couldn't make a coin out of it - no bootstrapping. But if I wish Alice a square's worth of pain -" She does, as casually as she might poke him in the arm - "then he can make a square out of it. If I were working alone I'd have to operate solely through physical injury, which I'd certainly find unpleasant and I imagine you would too."

[sicaria]

"Hm," is all Sherlock says to that.

[edgeofyourseat]

(Alice grins at his Bella. Alice loves his Bella.)

[self_composed]

"I can comfortably - well, not literally comfortably, but unproblematically - make triangles and squares," says Stella. She bites the inside of her cheek, and holds up a glowy red square. "These will actually accomplish a fair amount if you're smart about it, although triangles are only for very minor tasks - they'd be an edge, in a world with no magic, but not a decisive one. A square will conjure you a nonmagical object, or give you about five minutes' worth of some nonmagical skill or property - I masochistified myself for a brief period once, before I got hit by the van, when we didn't have a hex to turn Alice into a mint and we were trying to figure out a way for me to tolerate it. It wasn't my favorite experience, and I'm not actually sure if my ingot power would let me do it more sustainably if I tried. Pentagons can do permanent nonmagical skills - languages are what I've done the most, though I can also play the flute and kick ass at aikido and such. Hexes are for permanent magic powers." She floats out of her chair. "And similarly large-scale stuff. And stars... are for terraforming, or eradicating diseases from the face of a planet, things like that."

[sicaria]

"Could I," says Sherlock, "try this brain edit, and reverse it if I don't like it for some reason?"

[self_composed]

Bella tosses her the square. "You want help wish-designing or do you think you've got it covered? Oh, and I've already got an agony beam installed, let me know if you want to take it for a test run."

[she_sells_seashells]

"You're very casual about this," observes Shell Bell.

[self_composed]

"Blame him," laughs Stella, aiming a thumb at Alice. "Amariah's got one too, the book says, though as of the writing they weren't dating; check up on her later and if you can stomach it ask what they get up to."

[sicaria]

"Thank you, I believe I have it covered," she says.

The square disappears. She nibbles her lip.

Thoughtfully: "This agony beam of yours, it has settings for different coins' worth? A square's, if you please."

[self_composed]

"That's a range," says Stella. "Going from ten 'triangles' -" She offers up ten triangles' worth of pain. "Through ninety-nine." She skips up to that, then backs off. "It goes up by orders of magnitude. A hundred and up for a pentagon, a thousand and up for a hex, ten thousand and up for a star, and one time Alice made an eight-pointed thing that I consider probably evil and have not attempted to use."