[You have an anthem!]

[Oooh! An anthem! What is the best way for me to hear it?]

[You could come by and I could sing it for you,] he suggests. [And then you'll be one of very few people who's seen me sing while wearing a shirt.]

[Somehow I doubt this particular distinction is one that would make me the envy of the fandom, but sure.] She pops down. She knocks.

"It's beautiful, I love it," beams Bella. "How about 'Song of Saturn'? Can you orchestrate or should I find somebody else for that part?"

"'Song of Saturn'. Sounds like something out of a video game," he laughs. "It's perfect. And yeah, I don't exactly have a lot of experience with orchestras."

"Well, Slipstick'll find me somebody or I'll arrange it myself," shrugs Bella. "It's gorgeous, it's my new favorite song, want to record a version to put on the website?"

"Sure," he says cheerfully. "Know where I can borrow a decent studio? Or can you just conjure one up?"

"Tell me what you need and I can conjure one, no problem."

Ripper names the virtues of a good recording studio, chief among which are equipment and soundproofing.

"You want me to set it up here or on Titan?"

"I'll probably get more use out of it here. You might get more use out of it on Titan."

"If I find another use for a recording studio I can always put one there too. I'll just stick it in the corner." She pentagons up an appropriate studio, with magic handwaving the functions of a technical crew.

"Thanks. You're a very convenient friend to have."

"I am, it is true! And you are welcome."

"Awesome. It's a beautiful song, I'm so glad I asked you - can I hug you?"

"Yes you can!"

She does! Hug.

Unexpected but delightful hug!

When it's over, Bella hops into the air, does a bit of a twirl, and disappears.

She thanks him and puts it on the Internet with appropriate - ahem - fanfare; she has already asked Slipstick to keep an eye out for someone who could orchestrate it.

[...Yes?]

[You know him?]

[...Yes. You're a fan, I take it?]

[Are you kidding? He's gorgeous, and that voice—! Ooh, do you think you could introduce us?]

[Yeah?]

[So, turns out Queenie is familiar with Wretched, and she heard the anthem and recognized your voice, and wants to be introduced.]

[Aaaaayep. Also she describes you as gorgeous.]

[...So she wants to be that kind of introduced, huh?]

["That kind of introduced" is pretty much always an option with Jokers.]

[Wow,] says Ripper. [This is not how I expected my morning to go.]

[Well. Congratulations on an unexpected morning. What d'you want me to tell her?]

[...Part of me says 'hell yeah, bring it on', part of me is still sort of terrified, part of me thinks that I will lose all chance of ever flirting with you again if in addition to handing me a subscription to the magic Joker porn channel you also set me up with one.]

[You make it sound as though flirting with me is of supreme importance.]

[Good, I'm glad you picked up on that.]

[In that case, yes, introduce away.]

[Ripper says he's willing to be introduced,] Bella reports to Queenie.

[Ooh, goodie,] says Queenie, in a slightly different voice. (That happens sometimes.)

[I'll fetch you to his place; he has this thing about knocking.] She pops to wherever Queenie is.

Queenie is in the latest of many little apartments in Gotham, wearing a beautiful long silky red dress; Ghosty is not visibly present.

"He signed up for one of you, not two, so if Ghosty wants to join the party, ask first," Bella advises, and she pops them into the hall outside Ripper's place and knocks.

"It's nice how you're getting the hang of that," he says as he opens the door, and then he catches sight of Queenie. "Oh, hello."

"Hi!" beams Queenie. "I think you're really cute, wanna fuck?"

Ripper (glances at Bella and) grins a very affirmative grin.

"Well, I guess actually introducing you will be unnecessary," chuckles Bella, and out she pops.

[Heh. No problem.]

Well, that's kind of adorable. It's so nice to make - er, nightmares - come true.

[I'm glad you guys had fun.]

[He mentioned something about flirting with you. You gonna get any?]

[Flirting has been happening. Nothing beyond that has been particularly suggested.]

[I could make a few suggestions,] she says, giggling.

[I would not put it past you for a moment.]

[Well, do you like him?]

[You're adorable,] Queenie says fondly. [I think you should make out with him! Well, I think you should fuck him, but if I tell you to make out with him you might actually try it.]

[Had I dreamed of doubting the availability of your advice, I would now be thoroughly assured of my mistake.]

[I don't know. I can't tell how serious he is. I mean, he seriously wants to flirt with me, but anything else, I don't know.]

[He thinks you're precious,] says Queenie. [Trust me, I can tell.]

[Okay - and? I'm not Amariah.]

['And' what?]

[And I don't want to make out with somebody who just wants to make out with me and that's it.]

[And he doesn't just want to make out with you. Like I said: he thinks you're precious. Cute. Dare I say, dateable. Not that he actually told me any of that, but I can kind of tell, you know?]

[How, pray tell, can you kind of tell?]

[He gets this look.]

[Huh?]

[We did some talking in between all the sex, and he gets this look when he talks about you. It's really cute.]

[...Really.]

[Yes, really.]

[...That is cute.]

[What'd I tell you? So you should make out with him,] Queenie says firmly. [I'll even quit fucking him if you think you'd get jealous, and I do not say that lightly, because he is extrrrrremely fuckable.]

[Uh, wow.]

Queenie giggles.

[Only now I don't know what to actually do.]

[Take him to dinner somewhere fancy. Tell him I think you guys should make out. Take him home again. Do I have to give you detailed instructions from there? 'Cause I can.]

[There are steps missing from the beginning of this plan. I think if I just kidnap him and appear him at that seafood place somebody opened in the Arkady Bubble he will drop his tea.]

[Awww, you,] Queenie says fondly. [Call him up, ask him if he wants to get dinner sometime, he'll say yes, suggest a place...]

[I dunno, I'm not as confident as you seem to be.]

[Or I could call him and tell him you want to date him but you're getting all shy about it.]

[...Is that an offer or a threat?]

[It can't be both?]

[I suppose the key difference is whether you're planning to do this whether I want you to or not.]

[I won't do it if you really don't want me to. If you're kinda-sorta-not-sure and not planning to ask him out yourself, I totally will.]

[...What if I conspicuously refuse to tell you which of those it is?]

[Then I conspicuously refuse to tell you what I'm gonna do about it.]

[I probably should've guessed that.]

She giggles unrepentantly.

[This is reminding me of that time Aurora went to everybell except me and Golden and asked them how they dealt with polyamory and concluded that everybody had special circumstances and she was on her own. I don't know how to do this and I want to copy somebody because that would be comfortable and I can't.]

[It's cute,] says Queenie. [You should let me play matchmaker, I'll fix you up good.]

[I have a sneaking suspicion that if I do I will wind up blushing beet red wondering why I ever invited you to move to my universe.]

[Only a little bit,] Queenie promises.

[What is that supposed to mean?]

[It means I think you guys would be cute together so I'm not gonna get too awful about it because I might make you really uncomfortable and that would be sad?]

[...Okay, I'll buy it.]

[Good!]

[Yes, heaven forfend I dither for a while like a nineteen-year-old girl who's never been on a date before instead of sending a staff member to tell the guy I like that I like him like a third-grader. I mean, like a dignified magical space empress.]

[Awwwwwww,] giggles Queenie. [Well, if you wanna dither, nobody's stopping you.]

[I don't assign intrinsic value to dithering, I suppose.]

[So you should ask him out,] Queenie concludes. [Or conspicuously not tell me not to ask him out for you.]

Queenie giggles again.

[Shush,] says Bella, squirming, not that the squirming is visible.

[Okay,] Queenie says merrily. [Talk to you later!]

[Later.]

[Of all the ways you could have reported this to me, this one is not a way that tells me whether to regret talking to the little bird.]

[Were you expecting to regret it? I don't regret it. Well, not if you say yes.]

[I'm just going to take that as a 'yes Ripper I will get dinner with you' and not a 'yes I was expecting to regret letting Queenie be the messenger here'. Mostly because, on second thought, the second one goes without saying. She also said she would make us both, and I quote, 'nice clothes you won't mind being on a date in', which is sweet of her. And apparently the Jokers are getting together and making both the dinner and the place we'll be eating it.]

[That's very nice of them. Queenie actually makes most of my clothes even though that's not her job, but I guess this calls for a per-occasion outfit.]

[I guess it does!]

[Did they also schedule it for us?]

[Nope, that part they're leaving up to us. When are you free?]

[Assuming by "dinner" is meant "something around dinnertime in the Cronian time zone" - tomorrow at six.] Saturn has ten-hour days and the habitats are under sufficiently dense cloud for natural sunlight to be irrelevant; the bubbles obey a cycle of light and dark that corresponds to Greenwich and matches the length of Earth days.

[It's a date.]

[I suppose I shall swing by your place to pick you up? I'll remember to knock.]

[It's not like I can pick you up from wherever you spend your time when you're not empressing. Do you want to tell Queenie so she can have everything ready on time, or should I?]

[Got it,] Queenie says cheerfully. [We'll have it all set up for ya. Swing by my place first to pick up your outfit, 'kay? You'll like it, it's pretty.]

[I'm sure it'll be gorgeous.]

[Damn right.]

Bella shows up at Queenie's a little in advance of six to collect her dress.

It's exquisite. It doesn't even have a zipper; Bella has to triangle herself into it lest she tear it trying to shimmy into the close fit, and she peers into the mirror; she's like a stroke of midnight-purple ink against the background. It's sleeveless and floor-length with a high mandarin collar showing just a narrow line of throat and sternum, and the folds of the skirt have lazy swirls of ruby beads creeping over them; when she twirls and the skirt leaps out they shine. "I love it," she says, and she sets her crown to hovering where it belongs and it picks up the color, violet striped red.

"It's almost as pretty as you are," says Queenie. "Go on, have fun."

"You don't look bad yourself," she grins. "Shall we?"

He grins and takes her hand.

Pop! She has no idea where they're going, but it's still a unique location.

"It's also that," she agrees. "The sentiment behind it is cute, is more what I meant." She commences cutting a bite of mystery food.

"Mmm. Designer organisms." Because that definitely isn't chicken, but whatever it is is yummy.

"It was probably invented specifically for the occasion. Make up a name for it and the dining enchantment on your apartment should be able to produce it; enchantments are good at that kind of thing." She reaches out and strokes a flower petal.

"...The flowers match your dress," he observes. "The flowers match your dress."

"Queenie made the dress, so there was a chance to set that up, although it could also be the same kind of enchantment on my crown," giggles Bella. She picks a flower and tucks it into her hair.

"So yeah, this is the kind of thing that amuses Jokers when they aren't busy antagonizing bat ladies."

"Wow. Yeah, Queenie was a lot - I don't know, cuter? Than I expected, but this is something else."

Om nom nom designer organisms. "So the anthem's been well-received, I don't know if you've seen the buzz or been getting heaps of fanmail about it or what."

"Nah, haven't been paying attention. There was buzz?"

"Some. I don't have comments sections on my own websites, but there are unofficial fora, and J pokes around for interesting articles of relevance, and there've been a lot of hits to the page. People like it. And the orchestration's in progress."

"Well, that's nice."

"I think so. With any luck one of Saturn's entrants will win an event and it will get public airtime. What have you been doing besides songwriting since you moved?"

"Things," he says vaguely. "It's been mostly songwriting, honestly; I've barely even gotten out to see the rest of the bubble."

"Oh, that's a pity, you know if you never leave the house you don't get to see what bubbles have come to visit yours."

"We did get an ice skating rink a while back. That was interesting."

"And did you skate?"

"Not very well."

Bella laughs. "Well, perhaps it will drop by again and you can have another try."

"And fall on my face some more!" he says brightly.

"I didn't dare skate when I was a kid, I'd have gotten myself killed earlier than I actually did. I was the clumsiest little girl - Bells all are, without magic or in one case assistive tech. I've only tried it once since, but it was fun."

"Maybe we should go ice skating sometime," he laughs. "You can watch me fall on my face."

"I could hold your hand and you could not fall on your face," she says, blushing.

"Even better," he says, admiring her blush.

Bella completes her first course and sets down her fork.

"It was probably the most fun they've had all week, barring things I am disinclined to speculate on." She plucks a black flower and tucks it behind his ear for him.

Mystery food time! Nom.

This round of mystery food is even tastier than the last, or at least Ripper seems to think so, judging by the way he's devouring it.

"Aianon makes the best custom food."

"I can tell!" he says, with his mouth full.

Om nom nom. "I wonder how many courses they set up."

She tucks it into the dip of her collar.

"What's disturbing about a glowy flower?"

"...The colour?"

"It's red. It matches the little rubies."

"Yeah," he says, "and it kind of makes you look like you've been stabbed in the heart. But in a pretty, floral way. I don't know, something about the way it bloomed, or the light - it didn't look so gory on the vine."

She peers down at herself. "Huh. Stabbed in the heart in a pretty, floral way. Of course if I got actually stabbed it would bounce off my wards."

"And it would not be so pretty and floral. Now I want one," he laughs, picking a red flower and tucking it into his own collar, where it spreads out its petals so that their increasingly ragged edges take on the silhouette of an open wound across the front of his throat.

"Okay," she says, peering at it, "now I kind of see it. That would be an interesting cover image for a solo album, if you want to continue with the theme of you pretending to be dead."

"Ooh, tempting." He grins. "I like it."

"Are you liable to do solo albums? I just made that up, I actually have no idea what your plans are post-band-dissolution."

"Well, now I definitely want to take pictures of myself rocking the 'sexy, dead, and covered in flowers' look."

Bella laughs. "That will be interesting, I'm sure. But hardly answers my question; you could do a photoshoot and not attach music to it if you wanted."

"I'm gonna keep playing. And now apparently I'm gonna have brilliant cover art just begging me to use it. Yeah, I think I'll make a solo album."

"Awesome. How convenient that you have your own autonomous recording studio."

"Right? I should find some really, really nice way to say thank you."

"I can't wait to see what you come up with." She pops the last bite of the current course into her mouth.

"Well, I suppose that boils down to how patient we are and how important it is for kisses to be chocolate-flavored," says Bella. Her voice is even enough but she's blushing harder than ever.

She looks at him, and squirms, and eats a bite of her cake too.

Leaning across the table would be awkward, small though it is; he gets up and goes around.

She tips her face up, smiling, pink-cheeked.

When they break apart, Bella plucks a petal from her shoulder. "I should have expected they'd have something folded in to, er, celebrate."

Bella plucks one of the newest flowers and puts it behind the unflowered one of Ripper's ears. And she smiles, and she blushes, and she takes another bite of cake.

Awwwww! Bella giggles helplessly at the encouraging enchanted-things and squeezes his hand and blushes rather a lot. She keeps peering at him out of the corner of her eye between bites of cake.

"Nothing?" says Bella unconvincingly.

"Suuuure."

She blushes fiercely, but leans in his direction and kisses him again.

Ooh, kisses. For this he will abandon cake.

That's good. It's lovely cake, but it will keep.

He is both nummy and chocolatey, it's true! And kissable. So very kissable. Much like Bella.

She finds the fact that he keeps kissing her very reassuring on the subject of her kissability, certainly.

Yes. Those things are very much related.

That is good. He should kiss her a lot. She is definitely in a state of approval about this activity.

Great, because he has no plans to desist anytime soon. Although if they keep on at this rate, they might end up buried in a mound of flower petals.

Bella can always vanish the excess petals, if that little foresight has been demonstrated.

Ripper steals another cute little kiss after she has bitten the cake. It's slightly awkward leaning across the gap between the chairs, but as soon as he notices that, the chairs wriggle together and merge into a small comfortable couch.

Bella laughs, and pats the couch. "Enchantments. Convenient."

"I'm getting that!" says Ripper, scooting a little closer.

Bella decides that leaning her head on his shoulder and putting her arm around his waist is compatible with finishing her cake.

Snuggles and kisses?

Excellent plan!

She is pretty good at plans!

She's not bad at kisses, either.

Not anymore! And she has no point of comparison, but suspects that he is also pretty good at kisses.

Convenient cuddly couch. Lovely cuddly Ripper.

It is the most convenient of couches, and he is the loveliest of Rippers. And now that the couch has as good as told him to, he might as well curl up in it with her. And kiss her some more.

He does notice! The blush was adorable, but he's not entirely sad to see it go.

It does symbolize that she is less shy. Unshy enough to snuggle riiiight up.

Kisseeeeeees!

[They may have overdone the flower petals,] says Bella wryly, without interrupting the kisses.

[I dunno, I kind of like 'em,] he says cheerfully.

They do provide an interesting sort of blanket. (Under which to snuggle.)

Mm, yes. And they are soft and pleasant to the touch. Which goes well with all the snuggling.

The involved humans: also pleasant to the touch. (Bella is experimenting with this now.)

Don't tell anyone, but Ripper is a little bit ticklish around the ribs. It makes him wriggle charmingly.

In which case he is going to be doing a lot of giggling and squirming helplessly.

That is cute. It is not enticing her to quit, not one bit. Also when he squirms like that it draws attention to his neck. Might his neck be kissable?

His neck is extremely kissable! Observe how delighted he is when she kisses it.

Melt melt melt happy noises.

Very nice. More neck-kissing is definitely in order.

Bella is nnnnnot going to complain. She's going to sort of press herself against Ripper and make noises.

Bella is also developing plan-related suspicions, but she does not voice them. She is too busy enjoying neck-kisses. The collar of this dress kind of interferes but she's not sure she wants to take it off yet; she obliges it to turn down perhaps farther than the fabric would normally allow. With magic.

The flower tucked into her collar is low enough to be out of the way for now, at least. Ripper busies himself distributing kisses to all available neck locations.

Squirm melt squirm happy-little-humming-sounds.

Snuggle snuggle kiss. Nibble? Are nibbles a positive sort of thing?

Yessssssssss.

In that case, nibbles!

Oh lovely.

Bella, Ripper is discovering, is extremely nibbleable.

She is making every effort to be nibbleable, on the theory that this will yield nibbles.

Her theory is sound. Nibbles are had.

He has many touchable areas! Some of which are covered in flower petals, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

But it is, a little, because they get in the way. Shoo, flower petals in the way of Ripper.

They are easily shooed!

Good. Skin.

Skin is good, it's true. Also touchable.

And kissable.

Ooh.

Yep. Bella is just full of clever ideas.

So very clever! Mmmm.

Ooh. Snuggle! Snuggly nuzzly snuggle. With lots of skin.

Yes. Considerable amounts of it. Also kissing.

These are all good things!

Bella agrees! It is so nice that they are in accord about this.

Yes. Yes it is.

Maybe they are also in accord about other stuff.

Bella is a little distracted at that moment; she notices, but doesn't complete her thoughts on the subject until a breathless minute of kissing later, at which time she says: "If they come and check on this place I will never hear the end of it."

[Wanna find out?] she murmurs.

Empirical testing follows.

Mmmmmmmcuddles. Bella is perfectly thrilled to cuddle.

Cuddles! Happy snuggly squishy cuddles. And kisses. But mostly cuddles.

Ripper pretty much doesn't have anything time-dependent to go and do. So he can just stay here and snuggle her on this extremely comfortable couch. That seems like a great plan.

"I like you too," he says, and he kisses her cheek.

Kisses! Cuddles! A successful dinner-date.

Yes indeed.