Well, he can teleport to take breaks in the comfort of his own home. Or Bella's own home. No endlessly beige hotels.

Breaks in Bella's own home are definitely a major plus of this teleportation business.

She agrees completely!

[I'm going to guess the Easter Bunny. Am I right, do I get a prize?]

[I love you too, and why are you neglecting your better judgment?]

[There's a reason they call it better judgment and not worse judgment.]

[Love you.]

His busy message is a little I'm-going-to-regret-this sigh.

Bella leaves it alone. She spends a while tweaking J's email-handling protocols and then she appears at a tiresome ceremonial event in New Guinea and then she grabs Queenie to patch the enchantment on a bubble-cluster.

[Love you. Sleep well.]

[Mmm,] he agrees, sleepily, and that becomes his busy message.

[Sounded like that, yeah.]

[I don't even know if he'll be back. Anytime soon, I mean. I'm pretty sure there's no getting rid of him in the long run.]

[Not without drastic measures, maybe. He's awfully persistent.]

[No drastic measures, please.]

[Okay.]

He sighs. [Thanks.]

[You're welcome. I don't suppose you know why he's so interested in popping up in your life on a regular basis?]

[Because he likes me?]

[Or something.]

[Really, that's why. He likes me and he's Rayne and this is how Rayne likes people.]

[Why does he like people in this way?]

[I'm supposed to know?]

[Well, I'm not planning to ask him.]

[He'd lie, anyway.]

[Among the reasons I'm not planning to ask him. I mean, I could tell if he was lying, but that doesn't tell me what the truth is.]

[Does there have to be something more to it than 'because he's Rayne and that's how he works'?]

[That doesn't tell me what the - moving parts are.]

[Mm?]

[Well, impulses to do things are made of stuff, even if they're mostly just smaller impulses. I don't expect humans to have a 'like people by intermittent stalking' basic indivisible drive. Vampires maybe, the Aurum kind.]

[Intermittent stalking isn't exactly how he likes people. But, I don't know, intermittent stalking is not a surprise coming from him. He just - he doesn't like very many people. I might be the only one, actually. I've never seen him get like this about anybody else.]

[Also vampiric. Have you ever seen him eat solid food?]

[A mated vampire wouldn't leave you alone for stretches as long as he does anyway, I guess.]

[Right, definitely never let him visit Aurum.]

[He's already on the definite-no-list for when Jan'es back.]

[Good. I'm all right with the intermittent stalking but I don't want it getting any less intermittent.]

[The real danger if he turned and came out all over Fated, Eternal at you would not be that he'd stalk you more, it would be that he'd bite you and you'd be all symmetrical.]

[That would be hell. I don't ever, ever want to be Fated Eternal with anybody, least of all Rayne.]

[Yeah, it does not universally appeal. Golden likes it, but nobell else signed up.]

[I love you and all, I don't plan to stop, but losing the option would be terrifying.]

[You could torch it off like Alice did, but yeah. And there's no guarantee you'd settle on me anyway, you can't conjure up illusions for it like you can with coin colors and daemons and it could just as easily be anyone else, we'd have to ask a precog.]

[Which we're not doing, because I don't want to no matter who I'd get.]

[I understand.]

He sighs.

[You okay?]

[Yeah. Well, no. Well, mostly.]

[...Can I do anything about that?]

[I can think of things, but they'd probably all make me late checking into the next hotel.]

[I eschew outright time travel, but time dilation isn't a big deal.]

[So we can go have a cuddle and I can come back and it'll only be a few seconds? Deal.]

[Sure.] Wish. [C'mere.]

Snuggle, snuggle.

Mmm, lemon drops. Bella replies with maple sugar.

Bella is the nummiest empress!

She is!

Ripper is so pleased with her numminess.

She is pleased with what he does when he is pleased.

Well, everyone is pleased, then, aren't they!

Universal pleasedness and all the time in the world!

Yes. They should've thought of this before, really. No interruptions!

Indeed! She might just leave the time dilation feature in place on this room. Indefinite recreational naps. Leisure activity.

Sex.

That is the kind of leisure activity, yes.

It is one of the best kinds of leisure activity!

It is!

Mmm. Leisurely.

Also yummy.

All the cuddles he wants.

Good, because this is one of those times he gets very very cuddly.

He does, it's great.

Cuddles!

Ripper is willing to attend!

If they want him to sing, then he'll sing. Presumably by now they know what they're getting; his solo album has been out for months.

The party is well-attended, well-recorded - Bella puts video of the highlights on the Imperial website - and well-received. It lasts three days, although most people don't attend all three. Bella's speech and Ripper's set are both on day one; on the second day Bella has a little booth set up for wish-requesting, and the line gets very long but there are things to see on the way and enchanted trays of food will fetch people snacks and beverages while they wait.

Ripper mostly leaves it alone after his set. Massive parties aren't his favourite thing. He does drop in on Bella's wish booth every so often, though, to give her a kiss and see who's asking for what.

Some people are enjoying the comfortable complete lack of need to do anything when you live on Saturn and have, therefore, negligible income, but harbor desires for small consumer goods that cannot be obtained without money or magic. Some people want things about their bubbles edited. Some of them want Earth family coaxed into moving. Some of them want languages. (Bubbles tend to be monolingual, but this party distinctly isn't. Bella wonders to Ripper if Saturn is going to develop an interesting panlinguistic pidgin after some children have grown up on it.) Some of them are just lining up to thank her.

Well, that's adorable.

She also signs some autographs, removes someone's mole, and takes pictures with a bunch of people.

Ripper wanders off again during an instance of picture-taking.

[Having fun?]

[Eh.]

[Not your thing? They're planning to do this every year, although maybe after a while it'll settle down into years divisible by five.]

[The singing was fun. And watching you grant wishes is cute, I just don't want to spend an entire day on it.]

[Fair enough, I'm totally also remotely having a meeting with the disaster relief team and double-checking J's sort of the next resurrection batch.]

He laughs. [That's my empress.]

[I am, it is true. After this thing is over we should do something less crowded.]

[I like the sound of that.]

[That's not even what I meant, although it is admittedly an occupational hazard of spending uncrowded time together. I meant we could - watch a movie or go skating again or return to the intergalactic gazebo and see if any of the Jokers have quietly set it up for another visit just in case.]

[Ooh. Yeah, let's check out the intergalactic gazebo.]

[And if they haven't set anything up, we can.]

[I like the sound of that.]

[Do you now.]

[You, me, intergalactic gazebo, delicious dinner, flower petals everywhere? Yeah, sounds like a date.]

[It does sound that way, doesn't it? I love you.]

[I love you too.]

The party is all through on schedule, with a fireworks display and the orchestral version of the anthem, and then Bella pops into Ripper's hallway and knocks.

[Hi!] She is mixing things up today. She tastes like rosemary.

Ooh. Fun! Nom nom.

Bella pulls Ripper down onto the couch-thing that formed when they stopped sitting in opposite chairs, in case anything happens when they do that besides the predictably obvious.

[So apparently we didn't see all the flowers last time.]

[Or there's new ones. I wonder if it's going to - yep,] he says, as flamelike petals start gently raining on them.

[Very charming. Hopefully tentacle porn flowers aren't in its repertoire, that'd be a surprise.]

[No, that's not what tentacle porn flowers look like.]

[I mean if it changes from this kind to another kind.]

[I doubt it. Anyway, they don't just up and fuck you, you have to ask nicely first.]

[I feel so much safer.]

[Well, it's Aianon,] he says.

[Maybe the enchantment just knows we're not sitting down to have dinner,] he laughs. [I am kind of hungry, though. For something other than you.] Nibble kiss.

[I'm not very filling,] she giggles. And she conjures up a few baskets of assorted fried things, ranging from breadcrumb-dredged avocados to plain old seasoned curly potato fries to churros.

It is good and fried (in the sense of results, if not the process of its creation) and actual. Om nom nom.

Bella brushes it away for him. Nom. Kiss. Snuggle. Nom.

Mm. Yes. This is a good date. Bella is a good girlfriend.

[This and that. Writing some more songs. I think I'll do another photoshoot with the clowns sometime soon.]

[The clowns,] chuckles Bella. [Any ideas for sets so far?]

[Not yet. But I'm taking suggestions. Anywhere in particular you want to see me naked?]

[Oh, everywhere. You could take a few pictures here,] she suggests, [maybe angled so you can see you and also the Milky Way through the roof.]

[I like that plan,] he says. [Want to take some pictures?]

She grins. [You don't think we'll get distracted?]

[I'm sure we'll get distracted.]

[Aha. Well then, why not?]

She does in fact take several photographs before becoming irretrievably distracted.

"Sure," she laughs, "if we can disentangle ourselves. I do not wish to appear naked on your album cover."

He giggles and kisses her.

Kisses! This isn't photographic at all, but it is yummy. (She has switched flavors from rosemary to blueberry.)

They can! They can do that thing. First, they can do this thing.

Ripper likes this thing.

He likes that, too. And they are very nice pictures. All those petals flying through space, and the flowers on the walls framing his floating body - gorgeous.

Space is pretty. Flowers are pretty. Ripper is pretty.

Ripper is very pretty.

Yep. Pretty, pretty pictures. Pretty, pretty rockstar model.

"You're happy," she hums, smiling herself.

"How'd you guess?"

"The big smiles. They were kind of a hint."

"You are," she says, "absolutely eye candy."

Ripper beams.

"Occasionally also other kinds of candy."

Bella giggles, puts down the camera, and holds out her arms.

Cuddlepounce! With flavourful kisses.

This could be a very prolonged cycle. Bella time-dilated the gazebo when they arrived, though, so that's okay.

It's so nice that she thinks of these things. It is one of the many reasons why he loves her.

They are mutually lovable! And loving. Mmmm. Love.

Delicious love.