miracle crystal dancing jewel, spin!

[incanted]

Bella goes to bed, happily exhausted. She can make stuff! Not a lot of stuff, not yet, but still. She will be able to solve Brilliance's food problem and if she can figure out how to scale up she will be able to solve the world's food problem.

The next day is, alas, also a school day. She bids Brilliance good morning while she brushes out her hair. +Hey you.+

Comments

[cardistry]

"You can cry on me all you want," he says, hugging her again. "And if you really, really want me to show up to your graduation ceremony and clap, I can probably do that too."

[incanted]

"That was just an example, I'm not ruling out the possibility that I drop out of high school completely and just do magic instead," laughs Bella, hugging him back. "Okay, well, I'll think about it. - It might help if I knew why exclusivity was off the table?"

[cardistry]

"...Uh," he says, "I like sex. I mean I really like sex. I like sex like I like food. I fucking love ice cream, but I wouldn't eat nothing but ice cream for a year. I love fucking you, but I wouldn't fuck you and nobody else for a year. I mean, I've never even had sex with anybody else except that one guy I gave a blowjob to - I wanna find out what it's like with different people, you know?"

[incanted]

"Both metaphorically and literally, you didn't eat anything for four hundred years," Bella points out. "Now it's an impossible tradeoff when presented with your ostensible favorite person versus assorted random strangers?" She keeps her voice very even. She has no grounds for jealousy at this time; it will therefore be viciously killed if it should happen to intrude.

[cardistry]

"Um... yes?" he says. "Why do I feel like that's the wrong answer? You're my favourite person but you're not the only person who exists and I feel kind of weird about being expected to pretend you are?"

[incanted]

"I don't expect anything," she reminds him. "There's a reason I didn't ask about any of this ahead of time. It didn't matter for just," she gestures at the picnic blanket, "once. It might turn out to matter - although then again I'm not sure till I've given it some serious thought - for anything beyond once. And pretending other people don't exist isn't the idea, anyway."

[cardistry]

"I just... you were sad when I said you were my favourite person, you were sorry because you want me to know more people I can like. But if I want to like them with my body, suddenly you're my 'ostensible' favourite person, like you're not sure it's true anymore?"

[incanted]

"The reasons I'm your favorite person are sad, like, I'd be your favorite person by default because you have kind of a person-impoverished history, but that's not an inherent property of favorite person hood. I'm Lexi's favorite person, but she's had plenty of chances to find alternatives, if we didn't get along she'd have some friend who'd be her favorite person or maybe it'd be Charlie or Renée. Presumably at some point she will find a boy and they will fall in love and I won't be her favorite person anymore. Lexi's my favorite person. Presumably at some point I'll find a boy and fall in love and - she won't be anymore - and making that trade-in for anything less than the most special, most unique relationship seems - bad."

[cardistry]

...He hugs her.

"That's sweet," he says. "You're sweet. I love you."

[incanted]

Bella hugs him back and sighs.

[cardistry]

Hug hug hug.

[incanted]

"So, yeah, that's where I am on that."

[cardistry]

"Okay," he says. "And where I am is, you are my favourite person and I do love you, and that's not really related to whether or not we're gonna have sex again. For me, anyway." He sighs. "And - I like people. I'm scared of them but I like them, I like just wandering around strange cities at night and being one of the people wandering around there, and I - I want to experience people, I want to pass them on the street and say hi, I want to watch movies in theatres, I want to go to a library and sit there reading books all day, I want to go to a mall and window-shop for hours, I want to go to a bar and have a stranger buy me a drink and take me home and fuck me, I want to do everything I've spent four hundred years not doing, and I can't stand giving up any of it."

By the end of this speech, he is crying into her shoulder.

[incanted]

She hugs him and pats his back and waits for the crying to abate.

[cardistry]

After a minute or two he's down to sniffling. Cuddly sniffling.

[incanted]

"You can do all that stuff," she says. "All of it. I just have to think about whether it's compatible with us. ...Do you want to fall in love with random people, or just screw them? Might matter."

[cardistry]

"I have no idea," he says. "I don't think falling in love is the kind of thing you decide to do, anyway, is it? I didn't decide to fall in love with you, I just - did. Because you're awesome. So maybe I'll fall in love with anybody else I meet that's awesome. Or maybe I'll never fall in love with anybody else again. I can't really tell."

[incanted]

"I don't know. I've never done it at all," Bella sighs. "And an answer about me might not be useful for you anyway."

[cardistry]

He leans his head on her shoulder.

"So I guess that one's up in the air."

[incanted]

"Yup."

[cardistry]

Brilliance shrugs.

"So, wanna do some magic?"

[incanted]

"Yeah. Let's see about doing a sweet potato, huh?"

[cardistry]

"Sure!"

He switches to staff form.

[incanted]

Bella manages a sweet potato, and she manages to make it cook itself so Brilliance can eat it, before it's time for them to go home.

[cardistry]

Brilliance greatly enjoys the sweet potato. He chooses to express his gratitude by hugging her.