Grandma Marianne is just leaving a meeting and on her way to the kitchens for a snack.

"Grandma, Grandma! I made you this!" says Carinna, presenting her grandma with the this in question.

"What is it?" she asks, inspecting the this. Without taking it just yet.

"It's glass!"

"I can see that," says Grandma Marianne. "It's pretty."

"I made it! It's for you."

"That is very sweet of you," says Grandma Marianne. "Let's find somewhere to put it."

"Okay!"

So she leads her granddaughter on a tour of the castle, looking for a nice place to put the this.

"It's still warm but it will be cooler soon and then it won't hurt stuff!"

"Yes it will," says Grandma Marianne. "Maybe by the time we find a place for it, it will be cool enough to put there!"

Carinna nods vigorously. "Did you ever play with hot glass? I like it, it's goopy," she says. "I'm gonna make another thing after we find someplace for this thing."

"I have never played with hot glass," laughs the queen. "But I'm glad you're having fun."

"Bella can't without gloves or tongs or whatever. Her glass stuff," says Carinna. "But I can!"

"That is because you're my granddaughter," says Marianne. "There's a little bit of fire-witch in our family."

Carinna nods. "I know. I'm a little bit and Tony and Sherlock are a little bit more and you're a little bit more than that!"

"Exactly right," she says.

Carinna beams at her.

"You know," says Marianne, inspecting the shelf, "I do believe it is."

"Good." Carinna starts blowing on the glass thing.

Marianne waits.

Eventually Carinna decides that the glass is probably cool enough to be okay on this shelf. She plunks it down.

The shelf does not catch fire! Marianne smiles approvingly.

"Do you like your glass thing, Grandma?"

"I do!" says Marianne. "It's very pretty."

"Yay!"

Meanwhile, Kiawen is a-prowling the castle. Tanalin has hidden and it is Kiawen's turn to seek. (They don't let Sherlock play anymore; they can tell when she's letting them win.)

Kiawen giggles. "How come you're dressed like that?"

"Because I like this dress. Who are you?"

Kiawen grins at her, and claps her hands, and says: "Guess, guess!"

"Ah-huh!"

"And who is your other parent?"

Kiawen tilts her head and blinks. She has three mommies.

"Oh! Bella," says Kiawen.

[...By our daughter, you mean our alts? Because if I forked again... I'm on my way.]

[Our alts, I think. She hasn't exactly specified.]

"I'm not," agrees Shell Bell, stepping into Milliways. "Hi there. What's your name?"

"I'm Princess Kiawen!" says Kiawen importantly, grinning.

"So I observe," says Sherlock.

Kiawen giggles. "This place is funny. Everybody's a mirror. Is there another Grandma and another Uncle Kanim and another Cricket and another Miss Cantha too?"

"...Which grandma?" Shell Bell asks slowly.

"Grandma Marianne. Grandma Ranata lives all the way in Linderwall."

Kiawen giggles at Sherlock. "You're silly," she tells her.

"Do you want to take us home with you to meet your family, Kiawen?" Shell Bell asks. "...Sherlock, should we get our Tony too?"

"I believe we should."

Shell Bell sticks her head out the door. [Tony. More alts.]

[Ooh,] says Tony, and he teleports to her.

"Who're you?" Kiawen asks him.

"...I'm Tony," says Tony. "Who are you?"

"I'm Princess Kiawen! You can't be Tony," scoffs Kiawen. "She's like Sherlock and she's like Bella but you're a boy."

"I am a boy," says Tony. "It's true, you caught me. But I'm still Tony."

"Pff," says Kiawen. "You're silly, whoever you are."

"Kiawen, would you open the door for us?" Shell Bell asks.

"Okay. You can help me find Tanalin! It's not cheating if you're not really our mommies," says Kiawen, and she opens the door. Here is the attic.

Sherlock proceeds into the attic.

Tony follows.

"I'm gonna look for Tanalin in the kitchen next. Probably Sherlock's there," says Kiawen, and she turns right back to the door that was previously Milliways, and opens it to the stairs, and trots down briskly towards the kitchen.

So... more following, then.

Shell Bell snickers under her breath.

"What did you find?" inquires Sherlock from the kitchen.

"Not Tanalin, yet," says Kiawen, leading visitors into the kitchen and peering into a cupboard. "Tanaliiiiin..."

Shell Bell is next into view. "Hi," she says to the new Sherlock.

Kiawen grins, tags her on the shoulder, and runs away, whooping.

"I'm sure you have plenty of parents," laughs Shell Bell softly. "We're not exactly that."

"Well, what are you then?"

"We," says Shell Bell, with half an eye on the local Sherlock to gauge her reaction, "are alternate versions of your parents, from another world. There's lots of us, actually. More of me than anybody - the Bella who's your mom will be the thirteenth we've found."

The local Sherlock is watching the nonlocal Sherlock.

The nonlocal Sherlock is watching her right back!

Oooof course. Shell Bell would like a peek at that conversation. And she has an avenue for same.

Pearl's brain gives the impression of not very much happening very very quickly.

Shell Bell giggles softly.

"Kiawen has found us extras," says Sherlock, kneeling down to offer Cricket scritches. "I am sure Bella would be much obliged if you would let her know that interesting things are going on in the kitchen."

Cricket peers suspiciously at Shell Bell, and Other Sherlock, and Other Tony, and trots off.

"...Smart cat?" asks Shell Bell.

"Witch's cat," says Sherlock.

Shell Bell considers that statement, fails to derive firm conclusions, and decides to wait for the local Bella.

The local Bella appears presently. She's trailed by Kanim, and she's quite bewildered. "...Hello?"

"Hi! I'm Shell Bell. I'm an alt of you from another universe. There's eleven more of you and me in other worlds. One of your kids found a door to the interdimensional hub and spotted my girlfriend."

Pearl gives a little wave.

"...Have a seat," says Bella, "tell me everything."

"The place Kiawen found a door to is called Milliways, but it's no longer the only way to get from place to place," says Shell Bell. "One of us brought in a -" She glances at the architecture. "...Distributed person, who can inhabit objects, like, this," she indicates her Janegem, "and move anyone she can see from such an object to anywhere she can see from such an object. We've also got a couple of shareable kinds of magic, both of which are really powerful with certain loopholes abused. You're not the only one with kids but you're the only one with a Sherlock and kids, so far. There's me, the one who brought in wish magic, one who's a witch - not of your kind; cats are not involved - and one who's an angel and one who's a vampire and one from a world with different vampires who was a vampire Slayer and the one who brought our distributed friend and one with no distinguishing features yet and the one who brought in enchanting and a boy one and an elf one and a sorceress one with a twin sister."

"...I'm the magician one. With a cat. Who married princesses," says Bella.

"I'm completely bewildered," volunteers Kanim.

The local and nonlocal Sherlocks both laugh.

"...This is Kanim," Bella adds to Shell Bell.

"Doesn't look familiar," says Shell Bell, "but there's a first of everyone."

"Wishcoins, mostly," says Shell Bell. She lets her aura out; it's happy, excited. "This feature's enchantment-based though."

"Wishcoins," says Sherlock, "are highly convenient."

"So much so," says Shell Bell, and she kisses her Sherlock on the cheek.

"You're carrying more power around than any dozen dragons," says Bella frankly.

"I'm not getting much. I felt the - enchantment thing," says Kanim, "but everything else must be - really efficient, if I can't get a sense for it."

"What do magicians do?" asks Shell Bell.

"...Ten minutes ago," says Bella, "I would've said - everything."

"Would you like to do some more things?" inquires Sherlock.

"Yes."

Shell Bell giggles and starts giving her the rundown of the powers she is about to receive.

Kanim eavesdrops shamelessly.

"You are also a magician," observes Other Sherlock.

"I am! These two rescued me and Tony from the Cave of Unpleasant Surprises a few years back, now I am just sort of around!"

"I see," she says. And she really does.

...Tony looks from Kanim to his Sherlock and back to Kanim.

"Then I asked Bella out to dinner but she is gay! And then Tony hit on me. And now I am - sort of around! I give the littler princesses magic lessons periodically when Bella is too neck-deep in politics or they're curious about something more my specialties than hers."

"Wait, you're gay?"

"...You're not?"

"No! You're the only one. I'm straight-with-a-special-circumstances exception. Cam is bi. Amariah says 'daemons don't count'. Otherwise across-the-board straight."

"...Huh."

"Huh."

"I absolutely believe that Tony hit on you," says Tony.

"...And... you... are?" Kanim asks.

"Tony," says Tony.

"Kanim was at one time asked to be our Tony's backup husband option in case I didn't successfully manage the obvious succession issue," says Bella.

"Yes, and then I ran screaming from the room, let's not forget how I ran screaming from the room."

Tony laughs. "Why did you run screaming from the room?"

"Because if I'd bolted without explanation the queen might've taken offense?" suggests Kanim. "She scares me sometimes."

"...Queen. The queen? There's a queen and you're not her?" Shell Bell asks Bella.

"No-o-o? I wind up doing a reasonable fraction of her job, but she's, you know, still alive."

"The queen is my mother," says the local Sherlock.

"In what way?"

"In the way where our parents are usually dead by the time we're thirteen or so," says Tony. "And usually not royalty of any kind."

"I was thinking more of the first thing. The royalty part makes sense if the template attractor is more along the lines of 'rich and famous' than 'specifically for this list of accomplishments'."

"...Template attractor."

"We come from a lot of different worlds, some of them more different than others. There's a standard Bell backstory, but even where it can't appear in full for world-based reasons, bits of it appear. There are similar things for Sherlocks and Tonies and all the other repeats we've seen."

"All of me are almost basically the exact same," says Tony. "Yours is the first girl one we've found."

"Speaking of which, should I go get her?"

"Good idea!"

"Yeah, what?"

"I am at a complete loss to explain! But they're in the kitchen!"

She giggles, and kisses him, and goes to the kitchen.

Kanim follows her.

"Hi, honey."

"Hi, Princess Tony."

"Hi, Bella! Hi, Bella's mystery twin!"

"Alt," corrects Shell Bell. "One of us has a twin, but she doesn't look like us!"

"I can see why Kanim had trouble explaining you. You should explain you instead," Tony announces.

"Besides this one who doesn't have a nickname yet, there are a dozen of us!" says Shell Bell. "We're each from a different world. I'm Shell Bell and my world is called Atlantis. One of your daughters found a door into an interworld hub called Milliways and met my girlfriend there. When Bells meet each other Bells we swap magic powers and acquire very long to-do lists."

"Ooh. Got any shiny new magic powers?" she asks her wife.

"Technically, yes, but I'm still getting the safety lectures and so on," says Bella. "As for a nickname, I don't know, how about 'Glass'?"

"Not taken," says Shell Bell, "all yours."

"Cute," says Tony. "How about us, do we get nicknames?"

"Yeah, when 'Tony' and 'Sherlock' don't cut it, I'm Screwdriver and she's Pearl," says Tony.

"You're a me? Wow, you're totally a me," says Tony. "Um... what if I can't think of a good nickname?"

"None of them could," says Shell Bell dryly. "They wound up deriving ideas based on their coin colors."

Shell Bell makes a square of her own, shows it off, and spends it to produce illusion coins in the princesses' colors.

"...Red-hot iron, apparently," says Tony. She peers at Sherlock, and laughs. "And you're steel. Is there a Steel?"

Pearl shakes her head.

"There is now."

Glass laughs.

"Any ideas on how to turn yours into a nickname?" Shell Bell asks Princess Tony.

Helpless shrug.

"I guess you could go by 'Princess' for now? It's not perfect, you wouldn't be the only princess at a Bell party, but I think it wouldn't be that hard to keep your family and Elspeth straight, and if you can't think of anything else..."

"I've got to have more identifying characteristics than that," she says.

"You totally don't, there's a reason the rest of us named ourselves after coin colours."

"So you're all blacksmith fire-witches who make flying armor?" says Glass skeptically. "Granted I don't know how to turn any of that into a nickname..."

"Blacksmiths not so much - more engineers - low-tech here? - and what is a fire witch - and yes on the flying armor, Iron Man did that."

"Iron Princess," Tony suggests whimsically.

"Bite me," snorts the iron princess.

"A fire witch is a kind of hereditary magic user, mostly having to do with fire," says Glass. "One married into the royal family a few generations back. It's a little thinned out for my wives. The little ones can handle hot things safely - Carinna likes to play with hot glass - but that's all."

"Kiawen, Tanalin, Carinna - you have three, or are there more?"

"Three. One apiece."

Tony grins.

"Cute," says Tony.

"They are! You met the untwins - do you want to see Carinna too?"

"Sure. Untwins?"

"All three are honeymoon babies. Tanalin and Kiawen share a honeymoon," Glass nods at her second wife, "but didn't share living space."

"I'll go see where Carinna is," says Kanim, wandering out of the room.

"Speaking of which, where'd the other one go?" wonders Tony.

"Away," says Pearl. "Some time ago."

"Hiding-and-seeking," says Glass.

Carinna and her Uncle Kanim arrive presently. Carinna double-takes at the foreign Sherlock. She is completely nonplussed by the foreign Tony.

The foreign Sherlock gazes serenely at her.

"Sherloooock," says Carinna, because Sherlock is the mommy who can always tell what's going on, "what happened?"

"These are another Sherlock and Bella and Tony from another world," says Steel, indicating each.

"...But he's a boy."

"You guys keep harping on that. I can't help it!" says Screwdriver. "There's like six more of me and they're all boys too, I'm not alone!"

"But the Sherlocks are girls!" says Carinna.

"Most of them aren't, just these two," says Shell Bell. "The others are boys. There's also a Bell who's a boy. Just one. He was very put out about it to start."

"I bet Iron isn't put out about being the only girl Tony," he speculates.

"You're so right!"

Shell Bell giggles.

"Iron?"

"There's lots of them, so they need nicknames," Kanim explains.

"...Are... are there lots of me?" Carinna asks, sounding stunned by the possibility and not really pleased about it.

"You're the first one," Shell Bell tells her.

"'Iron'," she says musingly. "That one's not taken, right?"

"There's Iron Man. It would be a little confusing," says Shell Bell.

"Not that confusing," she observes.

"Probably not overwhelmingly so. If you don't want to be 'Firewitch'," says Shell Bell.

"Are there going to be more of me?" Carinna asks anxiously.

"Good question," says Pearl.

"We do know that if the same set of parents have children they will wind up with children who are alts of each other. Rose and Angela both married Jokers and had daughters, and Rose's girls match Angela's elder two."

"But I'm special," says Carinna.

"So are your parents, and yet, we have alts."

"It's weird!"

"Oh, sweetie," sighs Glass, "not all alts are much alike, anyway, if they have one of you," she gestures at the visitors, "she'll grow up in such a different place. That other Tony is even a boy, there's no telling what another Carinna would be like."

"And she wouldn't be named Carinna. Not now that we know you had the name first. Although it's a very pretty name."

"What would you name her?"

"I'm not sure. We haven't really talked about having little princesses."

...Peek.

It is possible that Sherlock might want there to be little princesses, at some point in the future.

"Will you let me name the me?" Carinna wants to know. "I think that would be fair!"

"What would you name the you?"

"I don't know yet!" Carinna says. "It might even be a boy. Then it would need a different name from if it was a me-me."

"I see no reason we couldn't take suggestions," laughs Shell Bell.

"You will have time to think about it before you suggest anything."

"Okay then," says Carinna. "I guess that's okay."

(And they need not take the suggestions, if they are particularly... six-year-old-ish.)

...Steel is somewhere between amused and disturbed.

[Are you okay? It sounds like I can probably borrow from other Bells and that won't be a big deal.]

[You may end up borrowing from other Bells. I'm not sure.]

[Okay. I'm not short of local magic, anyway, I can probably scale it up really well with just a few judicious wishes.]

"I'm gonna go find Lin an' Wen," says Carinna.

"Okay, but don't get too involved in anything," says Shell Bell. "It's traditional when we find new Bells to throw a party!"

"With how many attendees?" inquires Sherlock.

"It tends to depend on how closely spaced the parties have been. The last one was when Jane came back online and that was a couple months ago, so we can expect a majority of the invitees, coming up on ninety people, one of them is a dragon. If you don't have a good place to put the party someone else will be happy to host. Not everyone's gotten a turn yet since by the time we threw the first Bell party there were already eight of us."

"Fire-flower Meadow will do it, I bet," says Tony.

Meanwhile, Carinna has decided that Grandma should know about these extra children she has acquired. "Graaaaandma!"

"Yes?"

"Grandma, there's extras of Sherlock and Bella and Tony in the kitchen from another world."

"Hi, Marianne," says Glass. "Apparently there are many universes and versions of us appear in several of them. This is Shell Bell."

Shell Bell waves. "And these are my Sherlock and my Tony."

"Hello," says Marianne to the named parties.

"Is this becoming a family thing? This looks like it might be a family thing. I can leave."

"But then I'd have to explain all the new magic details to you separately."

"The kitchen is getting somewhat crowded," Sherlock observes. "Perhaps now is the time to move us all to that meadow you mentioned."

"Fire-flower Meadow? Are we expecting a significant number of guests?" asks Marianne, her hand hovering by a thread.

"There are a lot of me. Them and all their friends will want to come meet me and my friends," says Glass. "It's not necessary to host the resulting party in this world instead of one of theirs, but as long as we can..."

"Then let's," says the queen. She glances around to make sure she has everyone included, and then pulls on the thread.

"I can set up if you like," Shell Bell says to Glass. "Nametags and rooms and stuff. Oh, these flowers are pretty."

"Very, but they'll also set people on fire if you step on one," says Glass, "usually before an event they just all get picked."

"Oh, but that would be a shame, they're so decorative," says Shell Bell, "I can take care of that too."

"...Sounds good to me."

"Take care of it how?" inquires Marianne.

"Magic," says Shell Bell brightly. "Offworld wishing magic. I won't hurt the flowers, I can put them back how they are after."

"And what effect will you have on them in the meantime?"

"They won't burn anyone or anything," says Shell Bell. "Not literally all the guests are going to show up fireproof. I mean, Bells will, but we're a little paranoid."

"Go ahead, then," says Marianne.

"Beads?" says Glass.

"And Rose's kids are rosebuds and Angela's are cherubs. Goodness only knows what silly nickname mine will get, if and when," Shell Bell says. "If you don't like 'beads' you can pick something else; at least they're one-of-a-kind and won't go around with nametags that say 'template unnamed' till further notice."

"I can gather up my grandchildren," offers the queen.

"Awesome," says Shell Bell, grinning. "And Jane can gather up everyone else." She taps her Janegem.