Although most of the Jokers are already in the orgy chambers with Brilliance, there is one - fluffy, uncothed - straggler.

Aurora peers at him, then identifies Rose and catches her by the elbow. "Hey, Rose?"

"Mm?"

"Can I talk to you and your husband? About - I think I'm wired funny for a Bell because of having a sister, and I'm not having as easy a time as it sounded like everyone else did coping with non-monogamy, and it'd help to - see what you do."

"Mon cœur," Rose calls in Beast's direction.

"Can what were you about to do wait a short while? Aurora wishes to interview us about how we manage your tendency to do such things," murmurs Rose, smiling slightly.

The Beast giggles and licks Rose's cheek. "All right."

"But I am not sure I understand what the problem is," Rose tells Aurora. "Or what your sister has to do with it."

"Well, I don't know if it's Lexi, or maybe something about how I met Brilliance, or what, but Lexi's the obvious difference," says Aurora. "And - Lexi is my favorite person - and now I'm dating Brilliance which is like inviting him to take that spot, eventually, and meanwhile -" She trails off, gesturing hopefully at Rose.

"And you are - unsure of your priority?" Rose asks. "Because of his - we could call it physical inconstancy?"

"Unsure of my priority, yeah, like, he said the other Jokers would probably not take precedence in a saving-people situation, but that only goes so far and it's not for the most comfortable of reasons."

"I'm unsure that we're the best pair to interview," says Rose. "For months we were each other's only company at all. I was his rescue from an eternity of loneliness. I am his wife. I do not think mon cœur is likely to abandon me for any newer interest unless the first abandonment is mine. It would certainly have been a terrible surprise, had it been a surprise, had I been assigning more significance to where he takes his exercise than to the rest - but it was not a surprise."

The Beast snuggles his wife.

"I can also read his mind," Rose says, lifting her hand to touch Beast's cheek. "Most of us do - I don't believe Cam or Amariah do, though. And Aegis's version is considerably more under Sue's control than Angela's or Stella's is under Micaiah's or Alice's. But it helps. There is - really no understanding of how they love until you have seen it, I think."

"If there's no understanding without looking and they don't mind being looked at why don't Cam or Amariah?"

"People from Amariah's world have their own sort of particular intimacy, which may suffice for her. I don't know about Cam. Possibly it's relevant that the two of them are by far the most likely to follow suit with the behavior that has you so concerned," Rose suggests.

The Beast laughs.

"So I should try one of them?"

"Perhaps. I am sorry I cannot be of more help." She pauses. "And it might be unnecessary to extract these Bells' respective Jokers from their activities, considering that it turned out mon cœur had so little to say."

"I have no wisdom to offer about being a Bell in love with a Joker, ma belle, because I am not one."

"I thought you might be able to reassure me about prioritization, but apparently Rose has you figured out well enough to do that all by herself," sighs Aurora.

"Of course she is."

"I am," shrugs Rose, smiling. "I do recommend mindreading. It - helped."

"I guess I'll talk to Brilliance about that when he. Emerges."

"They're having fun, Aurora. He will still love you."

"He will always love you," says the Beast, hugging Belle again.

Snuggles!

"Okay," says Aurora, "so, we've established that you're adorable even when one of you is a cat monster, I guess that's non-negligibly helpful especially since mine turns into a deck of cards and a magic wand, and I should talk to Cam or Amariah. Thanks."

"You're welcome," says Rose sunnily.

Aurora goes looking for Cam or Amariah.

Cam's over there!

Aurora summarizes her project.

"Yeah, um." Cam scratches his neck awkwardly. "I might be a little less serious with Jellybean than the others with theirs? Like, he's my boyfriend, he tells me he loves me all the time, I'm not really there yet, he doesn't really seem to mind, so it's not like I'm entitled to have a problem with it if he tells Tilly he loves her too or if he gets up to bizarre things with tentacled aliens. Let alone screws his way through the deck of Jokers, because I did that too, it's worth a go if you're into it."

"I don't think so," says Aurora delicately. "I'd give you my blessing to tick Brilliance off your checklist too but it's manifestly clear you don't need it. Do you suppose Jellybean'd have input here? Beast didn't say much but then Rose reads his mind..."

"Dunno, let's find out." [Hey Jellybean, Aurora's having a polyamory soul-searching Very Special Episode, you wanna help her out?]

"Wait, do you guys do the anime magical girl thing too, I thought you were wizards?"

"I am a wizard, I just dress like this because it's fun," says Jellybean. "Why, do you have a pretty skirt you're not showing me?"

"It's called a Barrier Jacket, it just - yeah, it is a pretty dress, basically, but Brilliance has to do it, I dunno how interruptible he is right now for participating in a fashion show."

"Oh, lord," mutters Cam.

"He was cuddling Queenie last I checked, he is totally interruptible," says Jellybean. "Lemme see."

+Hey Brilliance, Jellybean wants to see the Barrier Jacket.+

"Oh, cool," says Jellybean. "That's gorgeous."

"I wouldn't wear it around just all the time, but it's pretty neat, yeah," says Aurora, twisting her arm to look at one of the arm-warmers that stretches from her hand to past her elbow.

"Magical girl, what next," mutters Cam.

"Something wrong with that?" inquires Jellybean.

"No! No, I just didn't think it was - for me. And apparently it is for at least one of me."

"It's a standard person-with-a-device thing," says Aurora. "I should really come up with a name for my kind of magic user, is 'sorceress' taken?"

"Sometimes used in lieu of explaining minting, but otherwise no."

"Standard sorceress thing, then."

"It's super cute," says Jellybean. "I kind of want to make out with you now."

"Uh, no thank you? Is this want going to distract you from helping me deal with - what you were summoned to help me deal with?"

"No," he says. "I mean, I want to make out with Cam too, kind of perpetually, but here I am standing around talking about stuff instead of dragging him into the orgy chamber and pouncing."

"After I've properly met the new Bells, Jellybean," laughs Cam. "And helped this one. So - you think it's your sister's fault? That's weird that you have a sister, I'm not actually sure if that's any less off-standard than me being a guy is."

"I don't know if it's her - and fault would be the wrong word - just - priorities, they're a thing, they're more salient to me than most maybe because if you guys have favorite people before you have significant others I'm not sure how you'd go about it."

"Yeah, I kind of muddled along with that box in the mental paperwork occupied by 'Renée I guess' for most of my life."

"What's a favourite person like," says Jellybean, "I don't even know."

"Well, I don't know what it's like not to have one - or not to be anybody's, for that matter, and if I'm going around boyfriend-acquiring Lexi could start anytime. I guess the only-child Bells could count on your parents that way, but -"

"Shit, and you couldn't, could you," murmurs Cam. "I bet they wouldn't tell you even if there was an answer."

"Yeah. I'm gonna have to talk to Golden, about her husband and her kid..."

"Oh, I know that one, Elspeth wins but then Golden has to go into retirement and be depressed forever," says Cam. "I think Angela's going to have multiple children and I have no idea what that's going to do to her."

"...You know, that's kind of fucked up," Jellybean remarks.

"You're telling me, but I don't know how to operate the way you operate, I don't really get what the way you operate is," shrugs Cam.

"Um... I love people," says Jellybean. "For a while 'people' was pretty much Matilda, and I guess that's kind of like having a favourite person, but only superficially, because now I love you too and it doesn't make sense in my head for that to be a competition. I mean, I'd rather fuck you than Tilly but that's because Tilly's not interested in fucking me. If I had to choose between rescuing the two of you from something I wouldn't be thinking about which one I liked more, I'd be thinking about which one I had a better shot at rescuing, which one could probably take care of themselves without me, which one would be better at helping me rescue the other one after, stuff like that."

"Well, yes, obviously that all factors in, but I - maybe we, I'm still not sure how off-center I am in this department - need to know what we'd do if it was really one or the other. If somebody's going to die and somebody's going to live - and it's for good, not 'oh we can just get them resurrected tomorrow' - and you have to pick - I have to know that. And - and I want to know what anybody who might pick me would pick. Lexi and I worked it out between ourselves, and I'd given up on our parents ever telling, and then - there was Brilliance." Her voice gets mousier as she proceeds through this paragraph.

"...well now I want to hug you," says Jellybean.

"That won't actually clarify matters," Aurora points out, but she holds out her arms.

"I know, but," he says, and he hugs her.

"You smell like candy," mumbles Aurora as she hugs him back.

"He does that. He's a Jellybean. He did it before too, but now it's enchanter's aura. You should get one."

"Yeah, I will, I just - have to figure stuff out. Order of operations. Aura is nice but not urgent." Aurora disentangles herself from hug. "Also 'Aurora's aura' will be a terrible tongue twister."

"It's not just that, it's a whole tangled constellation of things of which that's the easiest to explain. And I did sort of try that anyway. And the answer was good enough - I mean, I'm dating him now, not just sort of awkwardly ogling him and getting needled by Lexi about it - but I'm still sort of bewildered is why I'm interviewing all the Bells with Jokers one at a time. Might talk to Shell Bell and Juliet too, they're not mono either."

"So... I dunno, what are you looking for, here?" says Jellybean.

"An understanding of how everybody else managed."

"I don't know if I'm any help. I pretty much - was presented opportunities and evaluated 'em on their own merits roughly one at a time," shrugs Cam, draping an arm around Jellybean's shoulders. "Which does not look like what you're doing even slightly."

"Not on an ongoing basis," says Aurora, "no."

"Maybe I should get around to reading your mind," Cam says to Jellybean.

"Maybe you should!" says Jellybean, snuggling up and kissing his cheek.

"Standard-issue? Enchanter's? Is there a wizard kind the manual never told me about?"

"There's not any good wizard kinds," he says. "I don't really care if it's standard or enchanter's or what."

"Let's go with standard," says Cam, and he wishes, and has a peep, nuzzling the side of Jellybean's neck.

Jellybean leans on Cam comfortably, and - loves him.

"...Good stuff, huh?" says Aurora, backing away.

Jellybean grins, kisses Cam, and teleports them to an otherwise unoccupied node of the orgy chamber.

[I should have done this fucking months ago, damn,] says Cam, by brainphone so he doesn't have to unseal his mouth from his boyfriend's.

[I don't know. Not this. I thought - that it sounded casual or something, I don't know, I wasn't paying enough attention obviously.]

[I know better and I am kind of high on knowing better. Damn. I love you.]