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Here is a house.
It is pretty and trim and green-and-cream and really ought not to be able to hold itself up like that, and yet here it is, somehow defying the laws of architecture. It is surrounded by a neatly bordered garden of ornamental and useful plants of all sorts: here vegetables, there herbs, there spell components, there rows of flowers.
There is a sign out front. It says only: Magic. Not, Beware, Magic or Magic Emporium or anything like that. Just: Magic.
Sitting on top of this sign is a cream cat with smoke-dark points of color on each paw, his ears, and his face and tail.
All in all, you could be forgiven for thinking that a witch lives here.
thaumobabble
thaumobabble
"I said it sounds fascinating and if I couldn't be a magician I'd probably go somewhere that would let me try it and do so," Bella says slowly.
thaumobabble
"Ye-e-es. What are you thinking here, help me out, I don't know the details of princess rules except in a vague sense that I learned in another country."
calendarofcrime
"You only need to be preexisting royalty in order to become a co-ruler of the kingdom," she says. "Marrying a person of royal descent makes you a princess in a sort of junior sense, from which point, if you went on to marry another, you could one day become a queen."
allthebrightest
"Whoa," says Tony, staring at Sherlock epiphanatically. "Whoa, hey, wait, you like her."
thaumobabble
"What is the current queen likely to think of this notion?" Bella asks. "Assuming it is a real notion and not an idle notion."
calendarofcrime
"She is likely to have concerns about the succession," says Sherlock. "And she will want to discuss your political aspirations in great depth."
thaumobabble
"Okay. Suppose I'm wrong about successiony things being a minor technical issue. I won't know for sure until I try and I won't try until it'd be a good idea for me to succeed. Then what?"
allthebrightest
"Well, I could just go find somebody to get me pregnant the old-fashioned way," says Tony. "Wouldn't be the first time that kind of thing happened in a royal family. Although it might be the first time the queen's spouse couldn't get her pregnant because they were also a queen."
thaumobabble
"I am developing a mental image of the political proposal. I'm kind of stumped about how to picture the domestic one," observes Bella after a moment.
thaumobabble
"Yes, see, that's what's puzzling me. Do I just not know enough twins, because I didn't think this was a way twins worked either, so maybe it's just you, or something?"
calendarofcrime
"I do not get the impression that this is how other sets of twins work," says Sherlock. "But I don't consider that relevant."
thaumobabble
"So the way this particular set of twins work is that you would be perfectly okay to be both married to me," Bella clarifies. "...And the 'old fashioned' backup plan, about that, would this be if I were or were not married to you at that point?" she asks Tony.
allthebrightest
"I don't really know," says Tony. "I mean, if I was married to you and then we found out we needed to do it, I think it would be a bad plan for me to stop being married to you and then go and get pregnant and come back and marry you again."
thaumobabble
"Yes, that seems obviously silly," agrees Bella. "But, like, maybe this would go over better with parties who are concerned about succession if I married one of you and then worked on the probably-minor-technical-issue with that one of you and only married the other one if I got it to work? And if I can't get it to work then the other one has to find a husband, but I can do, you know, a husband window."
calendarofcrime
"That sounds very practical," says Sherlock. "Which one would you like to marry first?"
thaumobabble
"I don't know!" Bella throws up her hands, laughing. "I only found out you liked me five minutes ago. I only found out Tony liked me beyond general flirtatiousness a few more minutes ago than that."
thaumobabble
"Yeah. I will do notebooking." Bella unsleeves a notebook. "I think best in writing, thoughts can't escape from me if I write them down instead of trying to remember them."
Write write write.
Write write write.
thaumobabble
Does she want a goodnight kiss?
Because the "next" question may not have been fully answered yet, but it appears to involve talking about getting married, so Bella thinks she can risk it!
Because the "next" question may not have been fully answered yet, but it appears to involve talking about getting married, so Bella thinks she can risk it!