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The guest list winds up being pretty huge.
To start with, there are now eight Bells. Pattern isn't bringing anyone besides herself, and Aegis no one besides herself and her Whistle, but everyone else -
Between Alice, the Joker, the rescued Queenie, Kas, Micaiah, and Sue, plus Ghosty who Amariah picked up on her way home, that's seven Whistles. (Stella thinks ahead: there is a soundproofed orgy chamber away from the main party awning. With a few nodes off of it in case more than one orgy forms; she can think of at least two other likely ones.)
There's an equally absurd number of Sherlocks and Tonies if you count them together. They have Juliet's matched set, Shell Bell's matched set, two other matched sets from Bell-less worlds (one with souled vampire, one both human), a stray Tony, and a stray Sherlock from Downside.
Amariah grabbed a random Libby on top of the random extra Whistle, but at least she's not incorporating anyone from home.
Golden's bringing much of her family and many of her friends - although Edward is staying home, that still leaves Elspeth and Jacob, Alice and Jasper with little Brandon, Rosalie and Emmett and little Henry, Nathan accompanying his mate and their child Kerron, Esme and Carlisle and their Lily, Addy, and Elena who'll get to see her brother. Golden claims that this is a conservative list and she could easily have produced another twenty enthusiastic guests. Stella doesn't doubt it. She puts up a few signs reading Please Conduct Adult Conversation Only Via Brainphone. Little Half-Vampires Have Good Ears And Perfect Memories. As a last-minute surprise, Golden has taken Elspeth's suggestion to bring Edward's deceased mother Elizabeth, too.
Juliet has, on top of her boyfriend and his - progenitor? - her tiny Libby, James, a tagalong thereto called Virginia, and a ghost called Minnie, plus Giles.
Angela's list is more modest: her, her husband, and their friends Alleluia and Caleb.
Shell Bell is responsible for half the Sherlocks-and-Tonies all by herself, a tagalong called Pepper, and also someone called Darcy and also Matilda. (Shell Bell is also the reason Angela is not inviting her brother-in-law.)
Stella herself is responsible for inviting Libby, Orfeo, Chris, Mary, Anna, Sandy, Eights, Chainsaw, Lazarus, Kolya (who is informed that it would be awfully inconvenient for a majority of Bells to all have to coordinate on pretending he doesn't exist when only one of them has even met him to be able to identify him in the first place, so he can simply stay home if he's planning to be hidey), and Bridget.
Stella sets up a name tag system. Everyone will have a tag stuck to them. Solo persons - a minority - will just have their names. People with template names and nicknames will have both stamped on automatically. ("Hi! I'm a Bell, and you can call me Stella!"; "Hi! I'm a Whistle, and you can call me Alice!" "Hi! I'm a Sherlock, and I don't have a distinguishing nickname yet but as soon as I pick one it will appear here!")
She conjures up a nice buffet of food and beverages which will stay its correct temperature until consumed, and assorted synthetics for the vampires (labeled not for human consumption), and dishes and flatware (all glass; even some of the food-eating guests might dissolve anything else) and fusses with the awning opacity until it lets in just the right amount of sun, and, what the hell, she throws in a stage in case Angela wants to sing or she decides to play the flute or someone decides to pentagon some other performative skill to entertain the crowd. She makes sure there are enough bathrooms for all the people who still need bathrooms.
She puts out a few tables here and there with little bowls of squares and triangles - a mix of her glowing red and Alice's shifty black - in them for everyone's convenience. She accumulates coins in those sizes faster than she generally uses them and has a great many, so there are plenty for anyone to dip and wish if something comes up. She double-checks to make sure the Martian ground rules prohibit any misuses available for those size coins.
Jane gets one of those high-tech holographic projectors, on wheels, which she promptly manifests in, drives around the floor, and makes faces through.
self_composed
her_imperial_radiance
"Well, two kinds of it," says Elspeth. "Stella's precog Mary has been helping with the wolves, and now that Aunt Alice has cleared up her blind spots she can do it herself - and she was already keeping a lookout for problematic instances of the vampire version."
her_imperial_radiance
"It's much better than having it happen at random. I'm happy to have Jake, but it was alarming at the time."
her_imperial_radiance
"Elspeth was five and wasn't sure if her mother was alive at the time, and -" Jacob begins. "But - man, you know well as I do that Whose Imprint Is Best fights never get anywhere."
prima-sequentem
Libby smiles fondly at Orfeo.
Slipstick looks between them and grins. After a moment, so does Granny.
Slipstick looks between them and grins. After a moment, so does Granny.
her_imperial_radiance
Elspeth pats her wolf on the arm. "So he's my bodyguard, although the title is less essential now that we've got wishcoins going spare," she says. "Mama barely uses hers anymore except when she's at formal meetings with human governments and wants to be shadowed by an entourage."
her_imperial_radiance
"In my case he's also handy for safety reasons that don't directly involve taking bullets for me or anything," Elspeth says, "because he's a very good target for my truth power on subjects that have to do with whether I'm safe."
prima-sequentem
"I'd like to register general envy for everyone here with a magic aunt," sighs Granny.
"Are you going to drag yours out of storage?" inquires Slipstick.
Granny nods. "Soon. And your mothers?" she asks, looking between the rest of her template.
"It's on the to-do list," says Libby.
"Are you going to drag yours out of storage?" inquires Slipstick.
Granny nods. "Soon. And your mothers?" she asks, looking between the rest of her template.
"It's on the to-do list," says Libby.
her_imperial_radiance
"Your aunt might be magic, Grandma, witches happen in Aurum," says Elspeth, "mightn't she?"
prima-sequentem
"If she has any, it didn't show up in time to prevent either of us from dying. I stand by my declaration of envy."
her_imperial_radiance
"Yeah, no kidding," snorts Jacob.
"Jake," sighs Elspeth.
"I've got no objection to how things shook out once she managed to get rid of the Volturi, Elsie, but before that..."
"Yeah," sighs Elspeth. "I know. It's tidier when it's mints, though."
"Jake," sighs Elspeth.
"I've got no objection to how things shook out once she managed to get rid of the Volturi, Elsie, but before that..."
"Yeah," sighs Elspeth. "I know. It's tidier when it's mints, though."
her_imperial_radiance
"Mama had a harder time of taking over our world than the other Bells have had with theirs, because she didn't have coins, just individual people some of whom had witchcraft, and because someone was already ruling the vampires when she got there. One of her plans backfired and she and Dad wound up each thinking the other was dead for five years, and mated vampires can't really do a lot without their mates safe. Mama managed to bring me up while pretending to be dead to everybody else she knew, which is more than most anyone would have been able to do. But then we got split up and I found Jake's pack of wolves and the Volturi found the pack and I found Dad being kept prisoner in Volterra where the Volturi ruled from, and a lot of very complicated things happened but eventually the Volturi were defeated and Mama became Empress."
dont_look_back
"It feels weird to have it all summarized like that. I learned about this stuff in class when I was a puppy," snorts Orfeo. "It's like hearing someone summarize World War Two."