in which the bells have a lot to think about

[subtly_artistic]

Amariah recites the entire conversation she and Callahan had to the assembled Bells and Jokers that evening, after Aether has gotten back from the dining hall.

Comments

[lifes_sake]

"Sure, in fifty years or so Aether will have Nice Sane Unbelled World all sorted out," shrugs Cam, "and we'll have met more Bells and accumulated more stuff and maybe we can all circle back to this world with something bigger than it is in the peal's collective ammunition. She didn't seem impatient to me."

[subtly_artistic]

"Nice Sane Unbelled World," muses Aether. "And I can just - do things, and then... science?"

[lifes_sake]

"You remind me of me when I learned magic existed," laughs Cam softly. "Yeah. Everywhere else, science."

[pythbox]

"Maybe we should just forget Callahan," Celo sighs. "I dunno. I still think she wants you to kill something big."

[dark_light]

"If we touch this universe again later it will be because we can kill whatever stops it being plausible to kill big things," says Amariah.

[autokinetic]

"Which of us grew up in military school, again," says Aegis absently.

[pythbox]

"...Do you guys not come from worlds where legendary figures are hard to kill, isn't that the definition of a legendary figure, do you just not have any?"

[lifes_sake]

"Hard to kill, yes," Cam says. "So hard to kill that causality stops working to cheat so you fail at killing them, no."

[dark_light]

"Not even necessarily hard to kill," shrugs Amariah, "I almost killed Alethia's god by accident."

[autokinetic]

"Peace barely has legendary figures and they go down as easy as anybody of the relevant skill level. My Sue beat the shit out of Mazer Rackham one time."

[pythbox]

"Who's Mazer Rackham?" asks Celo, predictably.

[autokinetic]

"Won the war before the one me an' Sue won. Figured out how the buggers worked, took out one ship, disabled their whole fleet like that," she snaps her fingers.

[pythbox]

"Cool," says Celo. "...Sorry, did I distract us from talking about our helplessness in the face of the perverse cosmos?"

[dark_light]

"The point is this is just a perverse little corner of the broader cosmos, and 'hubris' is relegated to fiction as a concept there," says Amariah. "Aether will be much happier. She should probably shadow one of us for a while to get used to the idea that Bells can do the things that Bells are wont to do, though."

[lifes_sake]

"...You're a field," Cam says to Celo abruptly. "A garden. Do you transplant?"

[pythbox]

"Uh - no," he says.

And pauses.

And says, "Fuck."

[subtly_artistic]

"...Oh."

[autokinetic]

"...Well, you can go away from it, though, right? You went to Milliways before. Do you need to be in your garden a certain amount or can you just go wherever as long as you have enough sex, because, I mean, there are ten and three daemons of you. Plus Nona apparently."

[pythbox]

"...Fucking at Milliways does help my field... so far," he says dubiously. "I don't know if it'll always work that way, I don't know if it'll work if I go through to another world, I don't know I won't just suddenly die if I stay extraplanar too long."

[autokinetic]

"This world is such bullshit," says Aegis.

[dark_light]

"Maybe you can room at Milliways, and Aether can hold the door so you can go check your field occasionally..."

[subtly_artistic]

"Cheating," says Aether, shaking her head, "that would be cheating."

[lifes_sake]

"I hate this fucking place."

[pythbox]

Celo shrugs. "I'm willing to try visiting other worlds, anyway."

[autokinetic]

"Yeah, 'course you are, but - I dunno, you don't look torchable, maybe your field would if we looked at it, maybe the admin could make it work regardless? I dunno."