devoted enchantment conduit, smile!

[incanted]

Aurora goes home before Brilliance does. She wants an aura; she's admired all the others enough to feel out of place by not having one. (Even Sarion does now.)

She asks Jane to let her know when Brilliance comes home to Rainbow.

And when she gets this notification, she says, +Hey Brilliance.+

Comments

[cardistry]

The spell informs her that he is mostly undamaged, except for some lingering effects in a complex subsystem, which it repairs.

"Cool," says Brilliance, and laughs. "Of course, now I don't hurt anymore," he half-complains.

[incanted]

"Is that unwelcome?"

[cardistry]

"Mmmmaybe."

[incanted]

"I can think of at least three ways to fix it. Two of 'em involve me."

[cardistry]

"Go on."

[incanted]

Bella laughs. "You want a list? I bet you can think of them all yourself."

[cardistry]

"I want your list," says Brilliance.

[incanted]

"Miscellaneous self-injury. Standard issue agony beam. A certain incantation that isn't 'pants', if you're there now."

[cardistry]

He grins.

"We could try agony beam," he says. "Do you wanna?"

[incanted]

"I could be persuaded." This section of her village is stylized rope bridges between treehouses and towers. She comes to a stop inside one of the treehouses.

[cardistry]

Does the treehouse have comfy places to sit and/or snuggle?

[incanted]

It does! Enormous beanbaglike poufs. Bella flops into one and holds out her arms invitingly.

[cardistry]

Brilliance hugflops onto her.

[incanted]

Snuggly hugflops. "Comes in about a thousand flavors because it was designed for some folks rather attached to their variety," she says. "Got a preference?"

[cardistry]

"Surprise me."

[incanted]

It's kind of weird selecting a type of pain rather than just a nice clean integer, but Aurora contemplates her options and goes with depressurization in a vacuum. Since she's not sure if he even needs air pressure to be comfy, this should be novel. She starts him up at one triangle. "How's that?"

[cardistry]

"Weird!" says Brilliance. "But in a good way. More?"

[incanted]

Nudge-nudge-nudge. Ten triangles. "I'm going to be very timid about moving this unless I get actual numbers," she says. "I don't want to spook you."

[cardistry]

"Timid's okay," he says, hugging her. "I like timid. Go for more?"

[incanted]

Nudge-nudge-nudge twenty.

[cardistry]

Snuggle!

"More?"

[incanted]

Bella carries on nudging up in piecemeal increments of ten when prompted and snuggling her boyfriend.

[cardistry]

Brilliance carries on requesting those piecemeal increments. For a while.

Until, eventually, he takes a mana-coloured star out of his coin sorter and starts playing with it.

"Is that how much stars are?" he muses. "It doesn't seem like a lot."

[incanted]

"Yeah, stars are everything from ten thousand to just shy of a hundred thousand," says Bella. "It doesn't seem like a lot? Wow."

[cardistry]

"It's nice," he says dreamily, putting the coin away and wrapping his arms around her again. "I like it. But it's, you know, middle of the road."