"One time, okay, it was just - I wasn't planning on two of my alts having married two of his and four more dating them, okay?"
"You didn't tell me!"
"No, I didn't, it was just going to be a one-off, and for the love of sunshine and rainbows don't spread it around any farther, okay?"
"I won't, but the Joker totally knows."
"Ugh."
"Well, not for sure, but he suspects, and not just because most of you are doing most of him."
"I think your grammar implies a little too much."
"Whatever, you know what I mean," laughs Lexi. "So what're you going to do?"
"I," says Bella with dignity, "am going to think."
And she teleports to a spot in midair, high up to the point of being a speck in the sky above Forks to any grounded observers, and she murmurs "flight" as she begins to fall, and she stands in place in the air.
And she thinks.
+Brilliance?+ she asks after about half an hour.
+Oh,+ says Brilliance. +I dunno - I guess I didn't really answer your question, did I? I'm still not sure how.+
+Like, sex is probably special for all kinds of weird historical and evolutionary reasons, it could probably just as easily be waltzing or something if things had shaken out differently, but I did grow up in a culture where The Special Thing is sex, where that is a thing that people in committed relationships do only with each other because it's a Special Thing with Capital Letters.+
+It's not a Special Thing to me at all,+ says Brilliance. +Because I, you know, didn't grow up in a culture.+
+Right. And maybe I could adapt better if, I dunno, if there were some device cultural script for indicating - specialness, uniqueness, particular devotion...+
+So,+ he says, sounding somewhere between very nervous and very turned on, +um, you remember when I said the incantation for my built-in torture function wasn't 'pants'...?+
+It's 'Devotion',+ he confirms. +And... well, I don't have any cultural scripts... but right now you're the only person who can use it, and I'm—okay with that.+
+I'm saying I don't want anyone else to,+ he says, +except maybe the Jokers, and I can live without them doing it, there's plenty of other ways for them to hurt me if they feel like it - and - I have complicated feelings about you doing it, but they're not all 'no'.+
+...Huh. I might - I mean, if some of the feelings are no and they're going to stay that way, then it doesn't work, but otherwise that might close the gap.+
+Some of the feelings are no right now but I don't think they're going to stay that way forever.+
+They're kind of related, I guess. Some of the feelings are no because I'm still a little scared of you, but I don't think they'll be no forever because I don't want to be scared of you and I don't think I have good reasons to be scared of you - I mean, I have really good reasons to be scared of people in general, but you're not people in general and I don't think you'd ever hurt me when I was asking you not to.+
There is a stack of empty pie plates next to the one he is partway through consuming.
"It goes in my tummy and turns into mana!" says Brilliance. "I'm not biological, remember?"