ma fête

[beheld_beauty]

Belle allows Jane to handle the guest list, and warns the kitchen that it will be serving many people, and makes sure that the living gardens are behaving themselves about maintaining paths for people to walk along, and she comes up with an enchantment to augment the castle's set of behavior so it can offer up appropriate music at appropriate times. She flies to Luc's village, and fetches him back, and tells him of the coming festivities, and assigns him to develop an introductory description of what enchanting is so that she can delegate tedious repeated introductory descriptions of it to him. Jane gives her advance notice of the nametag conventions, and she considers an enchanting solution but does not think it is best suited; she wishes the system into place instead.

She does like having wishes.

Comments

[self_composed]

"Uh," says Stella. "Maybe you don't want to read it, though, Rose."

[beheld_beauty]

"Hm? Why not?"

[guiltless]

"I have a power," he explains. "I've got this kinda dreamworld thing and it has people in it. I have no idea what they get up to when I'm not around, though, 's why I want you to look."

[beheld_beauty]

"And it might be something I wouldn't like to witness?" Rose asks Stella.

[self_composed]

"Quite possibly!"

[beheld_beauty]

"Well, I can back out quickly, if it is," says Rose, and she shrugs and peers around for Sandy's mindscape.

[guiltless]

Sandy's mindscape is currently a large mostly-empty warehouse with a bloodstained concrete floor, containing four men who are inventively adding to the bloodstains. They all seem to be having lots of fun.

[beheld_beauty]

Yeah, she backs out.

"Well," she says. "Thank you for warning me, Stella."

[guiltless]

"Why, were they up to the usual?"

[beheld_beauty]

"Does the usual involve a lot of - apparently enjoyable bloodletting?"

[guiltless]

"Yup!" says Sandy.

[beheld_beauty]

"Then yes. That was what was going on."

[guiltless]

"Sorry," he laughs. "So how do you do it? I wanna watch 'em."

[beheld_beauty]

"I'm an enchantress," says Rose, with a bit of aura-flare accompanying the word. "I don't know if everyone can do it. If you can, you want to sit down, and close your eyes, and sort of peel back your awareness from your physical senses - eventually you can multitask a bit, but at first visiting the dreamworld involves abandoning awareness of the physical world."

[guiltless]

"Ooh," says Sandy. "Magic. ...If I try that, though, I'm totally just gonna end up going into my power."

[beheld_beauty]

Rose shrugs. "I don't know enough about your power to say. Yours is the only mindscape with people in it. Even animals aren't present in anyone else's I've seen, just plants at most."

[self_composed]

"I want one of those auras, too. Unwishable, but you get one by doing enough enchanting? Can I just - wish to be able to do enchanting?" asks Stella.

And then:

"Why yes. Yes I can."

And she hops into the air and levitates comfortably and starts attempting to meditate into her unidentified mindscape.

[guiltless]

"Have fun," snorts Sandy.

To Rose, he says, "It's just that sounded exactly like what I do if I want to visit the Girls and I don't wanna wait to fall asleep properly."

[beheld_beauty]

"The girls?"

[guiltless]

"The Girls, the boys - my dream people," he elaborates.

[beheld_beauty]

"Ah."

[self_composed]

"I -" begins Stella. "Oh, if I talk, it goes away. But I think I did it, looked like Moonstone Palace."

[guiltless]

"Cool!" says Sandy.

[beheld_beauty]

"Getting into and out of it, and using your mindscape and your body at the same time, become easier with practice," Rose tells Stella.

[autokinetic]

"I want in on this too," decides Aegis, and there's a chorus of agreement from all of the other Bells too, and they all start floatily meditating.