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]

...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.

[incanted]

Hugs! Apparently hugs are going to be a recurring deal. That's cool with Bella any which way.

And home they go. Lexi's up late, watching a movie with Charlie; they are halfway through Mrs. Doubtfire.

[cardistry]

...Brilliance settles deck-shaped onto a shelf with a view of the TV.

[incanted]

Bella sits up and watches. She explains what she remembers of the first half of the plot to Brilliance by magephone.

[cardistry]

Brilliance concludes that he fucking loves this movie.

[incanted]

Bella thinks it's entertaining but not a particularly fine example of cinema.

Eventually the movie is over, and Charlie shoos the girls up to bed. Up they go, giggling.

[cardistry]

+G'night,+ says Brilliance.

[incanted]

+'Night, Brilliance.+