"Hi, Glass!" says Brilliance, glowing. "Nice to meet you too! What's up?"

"Actually, as it happens, I'm looking for an enchannel. I'm pretty sure I can just pour undifferentiated enchanting power into this forest," she gestures, "and it will consider it a pleasant snack, maybe the moss will get a little greener and some trees will gain an inch, it already knows how to be enchanted - no concentration required, I can go as fast as whoever's willing to channel for me can tolerate, I can get my aura up and running and show off while everyone's still here. I'm told you guys are the go-to for that?"

"Yep!" says Brilliance. "Sounds like fun. Mind if I snuggle Queenie while you do it? I like to be snuggling somebody while I channel."

"I can't see why that would bother me," shrugs Glass.

"Okay, great," he says. "You wanna do that now, then?"

"Yeah. Channeling doesn't come in convenient units like minting does, so, I'll start with a standard getting-aura-up-to-speed sized amount, tell me how much I need to step it up or down in terms of fractions?"

"Sounds good! One sec," he says, and he conjures a big squashy armchair for snuggling in.

Queenie appears in the big squashy armchair and holds out her arms.

"I could do twice that, easy," he says offhandedly, nestling his head on Queenie's shoulder.

Glass calls up a twice-that amount and funnels it through at the same pace. "Like so? Continuously?"

"Yeah," says Brilliance. "That's - comfy." He giggles at this description.

Brilliance snuggles Queenie and does not request any breaks for some time.

By the end of that time, Brilliance will be thinking about maybe taking a break sometime soon. But mostly he will be snuggling Queenie.

"Neat," says Brilliance. He kisses Queenie on the nose, and they and their snuggly armchair vanish.

"You got an aura!" says Lazarus.

"I did! And it is better than my spectacles," she laughs, "oh, wow, I can see everything. I'm supposed to get a second special feature, and I did, I can see it, but I don't know what it is. Do you?"

"It's a... knowing things... about things... thing," says Lazarus. "Other than that, it puzzles me deeply."

"Yes?" says, according to his nametag, Cloud.

"My aura is telling me really confusing things, I had it mixed up with the seeing-magic part but what I'm getting now is definitely not seeing magic," Glass says, scanning the group. "Wow, this is confusing. I think - that it's distinct because you're all from the same two templates, all standing together? I think I'm getting something about that."

"Do tell," says Plus.

"I - can you all stand with your worldmates instead of jumbled together? I think that might help." Pause. Stare, squint, headtilt.

Plus collects his Tony, whose nametag says Fusion.

Cloud locates Sapphire.

Minus stands next to Red.

Pearl obtains Screwdriver.

Steel is already standing with Iron.

Which leaves Strat at one end of what might loosely be called a lineup, and Iron Man at the other.

"Okay," says Glass, pointing one finger at each of the singlets, "on - at least one of several and extremely confusing layers of stuff going on, you're each templates for your - templates. I'm not sure that we couldn't eventually find somebody templatey-er, but you're the closest in this group respectively. And you -" She waves generally at the ones from the Sunshine worldfamily. "Are sort of clustered around a blank spot containing a set we haven't met who constitute the template for what happens when those templates appear together. Something is pulling hims and hims -" She waves at Strat and Iron Man again - "into a particular shape of stuck-together-ness and it's thereabouts. I'm not sure which of you is closest - this thing operates on more than three dimensions and you're all off-standard in different directions for which I have no words. And my set and the Atlantis set are farther away from that blank spot."

"Interesting," says Pearl.

"Yeah. The layers are particularly interesting - this is all going on on top of - under - behind? - not on the same order of existence as the stuff that actually causes things. Like, on one level, you all share names because your parents named you those names - on another it's because of a template attractor - and the differences that appear are showing little signals on all different layers, too -"

"Such as?"

"I'm - I'm not sure. This is all very new. I feel constantly on the verge of blurting things out, I probably would if anyone asked me a more specific question, but I don't understand how exactly the new sense is translating into any of the things I might say so I'm not sure I want to say it. I think until I know more about how this works my aura feature is a party trick and no one should rely on it for anything practical."

"Is there a reason why Sherry gets to be twice as many girls as I do?"

Glass squints at her, and at Pearl, and closes her eyes, and says, "I think that's a coincidence and if we find more pairs who include one or more girls it'll be roughly even in the long run average, but when they don't match, it'll be the Sherlocks who're switching away from their original sexes..."

"...Hmm," says Pearl.

Glass continues peering at Sherlocks-and-Tonies, trying to figure out why she said that.

"We should line up all the Bells in front of you and see if you produce any more knowledge," Lazarus suggests.

"Ye-e-es. And all the other template groups. And maybe I can figure out why so many of them routinely come attached - let me see if I can do that, first -" She calls over Juliet and Shell Bell and sends them to stand with their Sherlocks-and-Tonies and moves a little nearer to her own and carries on staring.

"What are we doing?" Shell Bell murmurs in Pearl's ear.

"Science," Pearl says dryly. "Of a sort. Glass has discovered the power to make pronouncements about templates."

"Ooh."

"Enwisdom us," says Juliet.

"I think I'm gay because my set are girls," says Glass, blinking with bewilderment.

"How fortunate for your set," says Steel.

"...Um."

"I don't actually know your special circumstances story, but it is definitely - as definitely as I can get, as confused as I am - related to your Sherlock being a girl," says Glass, peering at Shell Bell. "I'm not sure - it's different on different layers - but if you'd been impervious to your circumstances, you'd have started out not-straight or she'd have been a boy, or if your Sherlock were a boy the circumstances wouldn't have happened or might have happened differently, or if you were gay - or maybe bi, I'm not sure how strongly your Tony features here, that's indistinct - to start out with then they wouldn't have happened either."

Pearl hugs her Bell.

"Is there anything like that with me or did all my defaults just happen to match so nothing needed to change or what?" asks Juliet.

"Your defaults matched," confirms Glass. "Straight Bell, near-template Sherlock, no - rejiggering necessary."

"Lucky me," says Minus, giving Juliet a kiss on the cheek.

"Um, very, I think you'd be dead if she hadn't shown up," frowns Glass, peering at him.

"Well, that fails to surprise me."

Juliet shivers and hugs him hard.

"I think that affected the timing," Glass adds. "Of when you met."

"I can look at some Jokers," agrees Glass.

"I will locate some Jokers! I bet there's one over there," he says, heading Elspethward.

Glass follows him, with a remark to Shell Bell and Juliet that they may be summoned again as Bells collect after Glass has had a look at plenty of Jokers.

Harley Andrea giggles.

"Hi there!" Glass says to Harley. "And hi to you too, Elspeth, I got a neat aura power that tells me vague things about templates."

"I'll be right back," says Lazarus, and teleports away.

"Hear that, Harley? Glass is going to tell you and your alts stuff about how you work," Elspeth murmurs to the baby Joker in her arms.

Harley giggles some more.

Ghosty's attention arrives on the scene, and a moment later she coaelsces and waves to Glass and Elspeth and Harley.

Glass peers at her, and Harley, and hmmms, and issues no immediate pronouncements, but she does say, "Hi, Ghosty."

"Hiya! Everybody else is saying hi to Lazarus. They'll be along in a bit."

Here's the Joker, for example.

"Your - ah, maybe, but I think I'm getting a clear enough read without him," says Glass. "If he's not busy, yes, if he is, don't bother..." She takes a step back. She frowns at Harley.

"Is something wrong with Harley?" Elspeth murmurs.

"...No," says Glass. "I don't know. I don't think so - I need to see the rest of them."

Ansharil walks over from his previous corner of the meadow and settles into a comfortable curl; Aianon sits down on his folded foreclaws.

Brilliance appears, his aura turned down to a glimmer.

Micaiah shows up a few seconds later.

Then Kas, with Petaal curled up on his shoulder as a white fennec fox.

The Beast, in human shape.

Sue, with Ivy tucked away, and Jellybean sucking on a square purple lollipop.

Jellybean looks at Micaiah.

Micaiah looks at Jellybean.

"Well, there's the obvious thing," says Jellybean.

"I'm new," Glass reminds them.

"Yeah, I just - " and he glances at Harley.

[We should probably have most of this conversation by brainphone,] says the Joker. [We're not a kid-friendly bunch when you start talking history. Obvious thing is, Micaiah and Jellybean have never been raped.]

Elspeth swallows and rocks Harley in her arms.

[Not surprised,] says the Joker. [What about the one for shitty childhoods, is that one passing him by?]

Queenie arrives.

And last of all, so does Alice.

[It's... I don't want to ascribe emotions to this phenomenon. It's not mad about being thwarted, it doesn't hate him, but it's - circling. I think his childhood is blocked off as safe, now, but the attractor was - changed, postponed, it doesn't look absent, it looks patient.]

[Sounds about right to me,] says Brilliance.

"Can I do anything about it? Can anyone?" asks Elspeth quietly.

[...I don't think you can. I think he could. I don't think it's in his - nature, to do it, though. He's safe at home. He's safe anyplace you'd bring him. I think he's eventually going to wander away and get into trouble and you won't make anything better by trying too hard to stop him,] Glass murmurs.

"Love you Elsie," says Harley Andrea, snuggling into Elspeth's arms.

"I love you too," murmurs Elspeth.

Glass shivers once and turns her attention to the deck-in-general. She pauses her eyes over Jellybean and Micaiah again. [...You've got different... reasons on top of the commonality,] she observes slowly.

[Whatcha mean?] wonders Jellybean.

[I think you got out of it just because you landed in a world where if you get magic it happens young, and then you got magic,] says Glass. [It's almost completely causal, not whatever I'm seeing - I mean, I can see the attractor, but I don't see signals about why it's not in operation on you. Micaiah's is being held off for higher-layer reasons.] She peers at him. [Which aren't here.]

[Well, where are they, then?]

Angela drifts over and puts her wing around her Micaiah. [Hmm?]

Glass peers at the pair of them together, occasionally looking at the other Jokers for points of comparison.

Micaiah snuggles contentedly into his angel's wing, flaring his aura (innocence innocence innocence) a little.

[...I don't know your story and I'm sure I could put this better if I did, but what I see is a lot like - Shell Bell's special circumstances. Angela was a certain way, and you were supposed to meet and be together, and you needed to - suit her.]

[...What did I miss?]

...Micaiah hugs himself and leans on Angela and appears Generally Upset.

Glass summarizes for Angela what she missed.

[I - oh, love,] sighs Angela, hugging her Micaiah and peering into his thoughts to see what the matter is in more detail.

Does that mean that if he had been she couldn't have loved him because that is terrible, that is the worst thing, why is that true.

[I think,] Glass says, picking her words carefully, after she's heard this story, [that something about - the ways it would've changed you, the person it would've made you - would have - thrown off the way Angela's template attractors are trying to interact with stuff about your world. I'm not sure if you couldn't have wound up together. It could have affected something else. But I don't think it would've been as easy for you to be together, if you'd fallen into the attractor.]

[Imagine,] says Elspeth softly, [if instead of you, she'd met another Joker under the exact same circumstances. How do you imagine that would've gone?]

"Sad," Harley Andrea observes.

"Glass is telling us about some grownup things," Elspeth murmurs to Harley, petting his hair. "It won't help you to hear them right now."

He yawns agreeably.

[I was so young then, so sheltered,] Angela says. [It was a challenge to adjust even to you. I was always on the - naiver end of the Bell spectrum, especially back when I saw Jovah's hand on everything.] She swallows. [If you had been any farther away from - me, my understanding of the world - then I might have found the glow in our Kisses as incomprehensible as I later found Ithiel's deformities, I might have come to my crisis of faith earlier, and I don't know what I would have done about you, then, if I hadn't loved you as quickly as I did and then I didn't believe that we were divinely intended.]

She hugs him. [I'm so sorry, my love.]

Hug. Hug hug hug. Hug hug cry hug.

[...Maybe I should be more. Judicious about saying things? No one should rely on anything I say, I'm bewildered about everything, I just keep being inclined to say stuff.]

[Go ahead and say stuff,] says the Joker. [We wanna hear it, even if it's gonna do - that.]

Micaiah nods, sniffling.

[Okay... you three,] she gestures at the Joker and Queenie and Ghosty, [are all a cluster up to a point, then you branch off, I think most everything after you two died and you met Stella is regular causality and not meta-causality except for the fact that you all did get to meet everyone else. The meeting each other thing is mediated by meta-causality but since I only seem to be able to make pronouncements about people I'm looking at I don't think I can help us locate more of anybody... Insofar as you're the same you're all also template-y. I think Harley was going to go through a story like yours but the attractor is thwarted, more thoroughly than the other ones I mentioned.]

[Yep,] says the Joker. [Peas in a snuggly little pod, that's us.] He gives each of Queenie and Ghosty a kiss on the cheek.

[The rest of you don't cluster much. There's a little bit, with the ones from Earth, but not a lot; I think you're - very portable, so a lot of pull is going towards putting the ones outside that template cluster in places where you can meet Bells.]

[You two,] says Glass, pointing at the pair, [are weird. Kas and Petaal are two because that's a thing in the world, Sue and Ivy are two for regular-causality reasons, I think you're two because the template couldn't decide which species to land in!]

Ansharil laughs. The ground shakes a little. Aianon giggles along.

[What's up?] Amariah asks, appearing beside her boyfriend.

Glass absently explains the exercise underway while she peers at Amariah and Kas. And then she chews her lip a bit and says, [There's a weak attractor in Bells to find our - intended significant others - attached to useful resources; I think that's why Kas can read the alethiometer like it says in the Bellbook. It also plays to some template strengths - he didn't have to be as good at it as he is, but even if he weren't a true intuitive reader he'd still be good at it.]

Kas grins.

(Micaiah has slowly stopped crying and is now just snuggling his angel.)

(Angela is snuggling right back.)

[Do the rest of you with Bells want to get them so I can see more about how the grouping works?] Glass asks. [You guys are more popular among the Bell template than my wives are, and I'm not sure why... it might be because you're so portable, but it's not like the Sherlocks and Tonies are inflexible...]

"Sure," says Alice, and he brainphones Stella. [Hey, Glass is finding out about template stuff, wanna come get stared at?]

Brilliance likewise summons Aurora.

Ansharil notifies Sarion.

Beast contacts Rose.

Sue pushes a summary to Aegis and Jellybean brainphones Cam.

Aegis is the first to appear; she lands in midair and floats down, opting to sit on Sue's shoulders.

Stella teleports in, looking dubious.

Sarion walks, elfy aura giving a peculiar quality to her gait.

Rose appears presently, carrying a napping Céleste using her shoulder as a pillow, and pecks her husband on the cheek.

Cam teleports in, leans on Jellybean as casually as though Jellybean were a wall, and looks expectantly at Glass.

Aurora has to disentangle herself from Lexi, but eventually makes her way to the group, too.

[That makes sense,] says Jellybean, putting his arm around Cam's waist and kissing his cheek. [I mean, we're us.]

[I don't know any of you very well, but you have extremely strong attractors, even if they can be bent into a variety of shapes; a specific way to meet Bells just doesn't happen to be one of those attractors,] says Glass.

[There are some regularities. They are all older than us corresponding Bells,] says Rose. [By a little or by a lot.]

[I think that's mostly a minor default thing, plus a combination of Bells tending to be young when we get into a life stage where meeting intended-people is part of our attractor set, and some of the Joker attractors being compatible with being very old - especially if a lot of that time can be spent in unpleasant circumstances.]

Aianon laughs.

[I don't mean not having attractors makes sense for us in general,] says Jellybean. [Just that it makes sense we don't have strong ones for the way our relationships work, even when they're with a bunch of the same other template. Well... except for the retirees, you guys all had that thing with the Bat.]

[I don't know you guys,] Glass reiterates. [This conversation, the I remind you extremely confusing stuff I can see about your attractors, and the contents of the Bellbook, are what I know about you. If this makes sense to you because of something about your personality, you are going to have to explain it. I'd have a much better chance at figuring out how you all diverge from the personality template than saying anything about what it's like without being perturbed.]

[I think that how our relationships work depends a lot on details and circumstances,] Brilliance contributes. [And that that's not something you could change easily without changing who we are.]

[Me and Ghosty and Queenie are all pretty much the same story down to a sneeze, before I found Milliways,] says the Joker. [It's kind of a chicken-and-egg question whether that's because or why we all fell out with Batsy pretty much the same way, though. Does the Bellbook have Batsy in it, or do you want storytime?]

[It mentions her only in brief summary. I'm not supposed to give her coins. Let's hear the story.]

[Once upon a time,] the Joker begins, [when I was younger and prettier, I met this lady who liked to dress up as a bat and beat and/or scare the shit out of criminals. I killed some people and blew up some stuff, all to get her attention so she'd turn some'a that lovely violence my way. Worked like a charm, too. She had me locked up and then I started dreaming my way to Milliways and I'm pretty sure the rest is history. Same deal for Ghosty and Queenie, but instead of finding Milliways they kept at it until they died.]

The Joker chuckles.

"Your attractors have a different character from Bell attractors, some of them," muses Glass. "You've got the same, intense, invariable undercurrent through all of you. We have our necessities split up between - more traits, which aren't indivisible, which can interact in ways that weaken each other under difficult circumstances. The analogy I want to make is that Bells all cast the same sillhouette but Jokers are all made of the same material. Does that make sense?"

"Y'know," says the Joker, "it really, really does."

Rose laughs. "What of the Sherlocks and Tonies?"

"They..." Glass contemplates this, nibbling her lip. "Come out of the same mold. Their templates are making their circumstances do most of the work of pulling them into shape, instead of making them turn out the same way in spite of where they wind up; that might even be why so many of them come from that one worldfamily. If you kidnapped a baby would-be Tony and brought her up in atypical circumstances I have no idea what would happen, but I'm sure Harley's going to be one of you."

"Mm, that's good to know."

"Hey," says Cam, "perhaps you can answer the age old question: why am I girls?"

Queenie giggles.

Golden wanders by. "I hear you are reading templates."

"I heard the same thing," says Pattern. "How come we weren't invited?"

"I was looking at the Jokers first," explains Glass. "...Huh, Pattern, you and the Joker are from the same world but you are not at all attached. I think metacausally you being from the same place was almost an afterthought."

"Not surprised," says the Joker.

"Yeah, me either, what with us never having met and barely interacting," says Pattern. "Can you answer the age-old question of which Bell is the template? I act like it's me, but I don't have a mental opacity..."

"...You, and Golden, and Stella all have claims on different layers to being the template," says Glass slowly. "On the - the top layer it's Golden. Then Stella a layer down from there - they're weirdly interdependent, and then we all branch out from them in a dozen directions. And then - you're kind of an afterthought here too, I'm sorry, I can't think of a better way to put it - you're close to template baseline but - backwards. You're not the original Bell, you're the modal Bell. You're very close to the essence of Bells but we didn't start there, we started there-and-there in a weird confusing metacausal way -" She waves at Golden and Stella - "and the contingent extras got replaced as we propagated to other worlds."

(Aww.)

"Dammit."

"There's nothing stopping you from acquiring features going forward by ordinary causal means," adds Glass, "but I don't see a particular attractor for it."

"If I'm the - or a - template, then why do I have the only unique significant other?"

"That... is... a hard question," says Glass, squinting at her. "It might be easier if I got a look at him. Without, my guess is... something like... okay, some templates are attached to other templates. The Obadiah template is attached to Tony, for instance," she realizes aloud, "Bells' parents are attached to us, Bats are attached to Jokers, in each case one template is leading and the other is following. Bells and Sherlocks-and-Tonies, and Bells and Jokers, are sort of attracted to each other - I don't mean in the obvious sense, I mean in the template sense - but there's not a leader-follower relationship except in the obvious causal sense that Bells make and follow through with more plans. Edward is attached to you, but not strongly enough for the rest of us to have copies, and his template doesn't independently travel, insisting on cropping up in lots of places. I think that could change - although what 'change' means when this isn't working by anything I'd recognize as time I can't tell you - but right now he's a weak template attached to a very strong template, and that means he would only show up again if a stronger template didn't take his - place."

The Joker snorts.

Golden casts an exasperated look in her employee's direction.

"I don't know what template strength means," Glass hastens to add. "Not with so few examples, not when I'm so new at this."

"Do you see anyone here who has a strong template and isn't duplicated so far?" asks Stella.

"We're the strongest template here. The Jokers are second, I don't know how to interpret the gaps but I don't think it's a particularly wide margin... Sherlocks-and-Tonies-as-sets are next, the singlets aren't particularly strong-looking to me... Actually, no, Sherlock singlet looks like there might be something major on a high layer, but this particular sort of Sherlock singlet doesn't have a lot of force. Libbies are strong but not as strongly magnetized to us as either of those, but they are a little bit... and also to Sherlocks..." She has to look harder to get the other results. "Chainsaws, Annas, Matildas, all reasonably strong templates, not too attached to us... Matildas have a weak magnetism to Jokers, I think Harley was slated to meet one, should keep an eye on that world..." She squints at Lexi, where she's hanging out with Liselen. "We might find more of us with twins. If we do they'll be Lexis." She scans the room again. "...And I'm not sure, but I think... Kanim and Lazarus could appear again."

[Hey Tilly, Glass thinks a Matilda's going to appear in the world Elspeth got Harley out of. Should any intervening happen?]

(Jellybean grins a little.)

[Um... probably not,] says Tilly. [We seem to manage pretty well on our own. I'd worry if she turned seven and hadn't met a Jenny yet.]

[Okay. I'll ask Jane to keep an eye on that.]

[Thanks.]