universal star visitor brilliant start!

[incanted]

Eventually Bella and Lexi go to bed - they have to coordinate this; Bella's a reasonably sound sleeper but Lexi's not, so if Bella goes to sleep first Lexi won't be able to drop off with all the random nouns and if Bella goes to sleep second Lexi will wake up when she's trying to sneak around. They get up, and they get ready for school.

+Morning, Brilliance,+ says Bella while she's brushing her teeth.

Comments

[cardistry]

"Nothing, just - I don't know how you deal with all these rules."

[incanted]

"I have more freedom than most seventeen-year-olds because my parents know I'm responsible," Bella says.

[cardistry]

Brilliance shivers. "Lucky you, I guess. Glad I'm not a human."

[incanted]

"...Are you?" Bella hesitates to point out that humans never have to planet-hop for centuries of high-stakes sleepless tedium and rarely spend their childhoods being tortured, but the notion is there.

[cardistry]

"Sure I am. I mean, my life up until now has been pretty shit, but if I was a human I'd be dead, and now I get to do all kinds of stuff that you can't because the people who made you are controlling your life."

[incanted]

"They're looking out for me. Most people my age do pretty idiotic things even with more parental supervision than I have. They get drunk and crash their cars, or flunk out of school with no skills and no plan and spend the rest of their lives unable to get decent jobs, or they get pregnant, or whatever. I know I'm not going to do that, but Charlie only mostly knows I'm not going to do that. If he didn't set any rules at all that might be convenient for me but it would probably, given the way humans work, mean he didn't care."

[cardistry]

"Well, I'm still glad I don't have to deal with that shit," says Brilliance.

[incanted]

"How fortunate for you that you do not, then."

The door opens.

"Hi, Dad!" Bella calls.

"Hi, Bella, where's Lexi?"

"Jessica's. She'll be back in like half an hour, and it's her turn to make dinner. Hey, Dad, I have something important to tell you."

"Mm?"

[cardistry]

Brilliance glimmers.

[incanted]

"Okay - first of all - magic exists."

"...Bella..."

"No, seriously, I can prove it. Flight." And up she goes, over the sofa with mana-feathered feet tucked under her. "See?"

Charlie stands there.

[cardistry]

He glimmers again, a little ripple of light, like a visual laugh.

[incanted]

Bella sits in the air. "D'you believe me?" Bella says. "Because that's not the whole thing."

"Where'd you learn to do that, Bella?" Charlie asks slowly.

Bella brandishes Brilliance. "This is a talking deck of cards from another planet. His name is Brilliance. He's teaching me. Brilliance, you wanna say hi?"

[cardistry]

"Hi!" says Brilliance.

[incanted]

Charlie takes a step back.

"...Hi."

[cardistry]

Brilliance giggles.

[incanted]

"Where'd you find it?"

"He, Dad, please," says Bella, "Brilliance is a person."

"Where'd you find him?" amends Charlie impatiently.

"At school. Picked him up and he said hi."

[cardistry]

Light glints from the design on the outside of the pack when Bella corrects her father about the pronouns.

[incanted]

"And why is he teaching you magic?" Charlie asks suspiciously.

"Well, most people don't even have magical potential, but I do," Bella says obliquely. "Lexi does, but between the two of us..."

Charlie nods slowly. "Ah-huh."

"So I'm going to be spending lots of time on that, I'll go out of the house and away from people for anything big," Bella says, setting her feet on the ground and dismissing the flight spell, "we'll be careful and circumspect, and I'll try not to fall far behind in school, but my grades may slip since it's not like I can take a class in magic and that's what I really want to learn."

"But," says Charlie, "why does - Brilliance - want to tutor anyone in magic, even if you're the best available student? And why did you find him at school if that's the story?"

[cardistry]

"I'm a magical device," Brilliance puts in. "We like having partners; we're kind of built for it. Bella's a good one."

[incanted]

Charlie eyes him skeptically.

"So, I was thinking he'd sorta live on the bookshelf," Bella says, "but also sometimes he eats, so, we are pretty much out of leftovers, now, and I will need a little more grocery budget."

"The deck of cards eats," says Charlie.

"He can shapeshift," Bella says, "and sometimes he eats."

[cardistry]

Brilliance giggles.

[incanted]

"Into - what?" Charlie asks.

"Deck of cards, magic staff thingy, human," says Bella, ticking off fingers. "The last form is the one that ate the leftovers."

[cardistry]

"I never ate food before," says Brilliance. "Food is awesome."

[incanted]

"So he doesn't need to eat," Charlie concludes.

"Not for biological reasons, but come on, he's teaching me magic, it's really nice of him, we can afford to toss him a new kind of vegetable a few times a week."

[cardistry]

Brilliance glimmers happily.