festive rainbow mirror summoning!

[incanted]

There are now one dozen Bells.

They and most of their friends are all here on Planet Rainbowsand II, to celebrate the addition of Sarion, the elf one, and Aurora, the one with a sister.

Comments

[self_composed]

Stella hears the standard spiel.

[Hey Alice, Aurora is confused about how Bells manage to go poly and wants examples to go by.]

[edgeofyourseat]

[Mmkay,] says Alice, and appears almost instantly. As is starting to be a pattern, the first thing he does is cuddle his Bell.

[self_composed]

"But I don't know how much help I'll be," says Stella, snuggling her Alice back.

[incanted]

"Because you have some kind of special circumstance?"

[self_composed]

"No, because I was not quite secure enough for my liking and my reaction involved turning Alice into a vampire. I mean, there were other reasons, but that one was in there."

[edgeofyourseat]

Alice sighs.

[incanted]

"...Oh."

[self_composed]

Stella kisses Alice's cheek. "Sorry," she says, and it's not clear which of them she's addressing. "You'd think being able to read his mind would've done it, and it did, mostly, it jollied me along for months, I probably could've done with nothing but if I'd had to."

[edgeofyourseat]

"...no, hang on," he says, "didn't you say you didn't make me a vampire so I'd be in magical vampire love with you forever?"

[self_composed]

"I made you a vampire because I thought you'd like it," Stella repeats. "...It occurred to me in the first place because Golden seemed. Like she felt - safer."

[edgeofyourseat]

"Did you not think about maybe telling me that," says Alice.

[self_composed]

"I probably should've. I probably would've if - no, I just should've, plain and simple," sighs Stella. "It's not like you were doing anything that made me feel unsafe."

[edgeofyourseat]

"Would've if...?"

[self_composed]

"If you hadn't wanted it to be a surprise and there'd been a conversation about it first. We spent the next several days pretty distracted."

[edgeofyourseat]

"And then you just... kept being distracted," sighs Alice. "Until now."

He hugs Stella.

"I love you," he says, less happily than usual.

[self_composed]

"I love you too, I'm sorry," Stella murmurs.

[incanted]

Aurora's going to take a couple steps backwards now with a very uncomfortable look on her face.

[edgeofyourseat]

"I liked that the hurting part was a surprise," he murmurs, "but maybe - not the rest of it."

[self_composed]

"I'm sorry," repeats Stella quietly.

[edgeofyourseat]

He sighs again, and cuddles her a little.

[incanted]

Aurora thinks she has learned a potentially valuable lesson here. She leaves.

[self_composed]

Stella's not so readily disentangled from the situation. She pokes at Alice's thoughts, when enough of a silence has elapsed to make her nervous.

[edgeofyourseat]

He loves her. He loves her a lot.

But that's kind of the problem, isn't it? He loves her, and he can't ever stop doing that, and that is something she made happen on purpose, and when he asked her if that was why she made him think it wasn't, but then it turned out to be part of it after all.

[self_composed]

[I'm sorry,] she says again.

[edgeofyourseat]

[I know,] he says, hugging her gently. [I just don't know if—I don't know what to do about it, I don't know what you can learn from this, what you can do differently to make me not so sad about it, it's not like this is the kind of thing that happens twice.]