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Mars has more people on it now. Bella has conjured herself a crown of seamless moissanite and star sapphire, and wears it around most of the time. She does something nice for Earth every Cygnus and makes routine public appearances, with the PR guy Libby found for her on the brainphone steering her away from missteps. (Most missteps. Occasionally she just disagrees with him.) Life is good.
It happens one day that she attempts to read Alice, thinking it about time to top off her supply of coins - and besides, even if it weren't, she does like to spend time with her boyfriend - and - he's not there.
Her first reaction is panic. She has known from the beginning that a contest between them would come down to reaction time. Did she screw up by introducing him to Ghosty - did something else happen - does some switch trip in the relevant template at a certain age, is hers decent only because he's young - has he blocked her off with his considerable power and begun to wreak havoc?
But of course there's a much more reasonable explanation. He's in Milliways, that's all, he found a door and wandered off without thinking to notify her.
Because visits to Milliways take only moments worldside. This has been true even when they've been into other's worlds: the door is at a very narrow slice of time except when held open.
But she checks again a minute later.
And he's still not there.
Is he dead? Did he think of - stumble across - cook up some way to die that would be so fascinating that he had to try it right then, without consulting her, without thinking of her and how it would hurt her at all, without knowing if stars can revive the dead -
Or did he, somehow, in spite of what is now magically bolstered love for her -
Decide not to come back at all?
She's getting ahead of herself. She can find out if he went to Milliways or not. She -
Stops before completing her wish.
If he's gone - if he's not coming back soon, or at all - then she has to work at least for a while with the coins she already has.
She will not spend a pentagon to see this one snippet of the past. She will spend a hex to gain past-viewing as a stable power she can use whenever she wants. If she chooses the right powers to make with her current supply of hexes, she may be able to coast for many years with almost no individual wishes larger than a square. Now that she has the template of Olympus to draw on she's sure she could find a way to compress wishes for more cities - maybe even planetsful of cities - into single stars, and she has a lot of stars from the days Alice spent turning.
And there have got to be other masochists in the world. Some might be comparable, or people like Shell Bell's Sherlock who'll willingly be made so.
Her empire will go on just fine.
Bella's just not sure - when she's finished designing and installing the power, when she's finished watching Alice casually walk through the kitchen door in his lair to Milliways instead and not come out - whether she will.
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self_composed
self_composed
"You realize that even if nothing further comes of this conversation at all you can just move to Mars and eat food out of the replicator," says Bella. "Olympus isn't full yet."
"I like Montreal, though," she says wistfully.
self_composed
"Yeah, that's what I always hear when people list problems they could solve by moving to Mars and I ask them why they don't," says Bella. "Well, not Montreal in particular, but whatever pleasing city they are occupying."
"That's because people like places," says Anna. "I mean, Mars is gorgeous, but it's not... home."
self_composed
"I confess I expected the free food and magic public healthcare to attract more people than it has," Bella says conversationally. "But I am getting settlers at a reasonable clip."
"People might also not believe you about those things," Anna points out. "I mean, even I'm not totally sure, and I'm here."
self_composed
Bella spreads her hands. "Yeah, that's a problem. It's possible I should have charged some pittance and spouted bull about economies of scale. But that seems like such a wretched thing to do. I can give it away for free, I want to give it away for free, all I want to do is wear a crown and introduce myself as Empress of the Stars and have some actual happy citizens to back that up - finessing a complicated signaling game to do less of what I want doesn't appeal."
...Anna smiles. "Yeah, I get you."
self_composed
"I'm so glad," Bella grins. "So. Questions? Comments? Concerns? Demonstrations of responsible behavior likely to correlate with the nondestructive use of wishcoins?"
"I don't think my win there is gonna be how responsible I am," Anna says frankly. "I think it's gonna be how boring."
self_composed
"What do you do with your time?" asks Bella, tilting her head. "I know if you have a job you don't like it; what do you like?"
"Nightclubs," she says. "Loud music. Making out with strangers. Watching kinky porn. Avoiding my boyfriend."
self_composed
"...Avoiding your boyfriend?" Kind of an intrusive question, but Anna's the one who mentioned it.
"He lives in Ottawa," she says airily, "it's not hard."
self_composed
If Bella's boyfriend were here she wouldn't be talking to Anna and she certainly wouldn't be avoiding him.
"Why is he your boyfriend if you prefer to avoid him, is more what had me confused," says Bella.
"Why is he your boyfriend if you prefer to avoid him, is more what had me confused," says Bella.
"He's kind of hard to break up with?" she says. "I mean, it's not like he stalks me or anything, it's just we've been together for a while and there's always more of each other's stuff to give back and then he brings me flowers and we end up accidentally on another date and... why am I telling an empress about my love life," she laughs. "Sorry."
self_composed
"I asked," Bella points out. "But you can or not, as you choose."
"No, it's okay," she says with a smile. "Anyways, that's me. Too much of a pushover to stay broken up with a guy I don't even get along with that well."
self_composed
"That's... not actually an asset, if I hire you and then anyone figures out what your job is in spite of the fact that you can't tell them," Bella points out.
She blinks. "Because... what, Davey will weasel magic out of me? No way! I don't even lend him money anymore."
self_composed
"Not necessarily him, but you did just describe yourself as a pushover; I think the concern is reasonable," says Bella.
"Well... yeah," she says, frowning. "I guess. I don't know. I don't think it's really the same deal."
"No! I mean, what are you afraid I'll do?"
self_composed
"I'm afraid that someone - not necessarily Davey, could be a neighbor or a family member or a friend - will figure out what you do for a living. Or will just notice that everything is suddenly working out a lot nicer for you and determine that you have something going on. We can arrange for you to be unable to distribute coins, some small mercy, but I can't think of an unintrusive way to make sure the people in your life can't have leading conversations with you about what they'd do with magic or about my politics or about how they really don't like that one guy down the street or whatever. Even if we set it up so all the coins you make teleport to my stash instantaneously and I give you an allowance, instead of the setup where you've got a quota to manage on your own or with my help and can keep the excess... you'll have some access to magic, or I shouldn't be trusting you with mint powers in the first place."