the end of vigil

[inherpiety]

Keziah continues to routinely invite Junia to sing with her.

Today they are practicing the Third Angelic Rite.

And then - how rude! - the door to the music room opens.

But not to the hallway - and not to any visible hand - and there is a strong press of magical presence emanating from it, and a faint sheen of rainbow water droplets hanging in the air.

Comments

[inherpiety]

"She's with some people but you can still talk to her," says Keziah, "just don't go there."

[pythbox]

"I am extremely confused," announces Junia.

[inherpiety]

"These are versions of my mom from other universes," explains Keziah. "They're all friends."

[pythbox]

"I am not very much less confused," says Junia.

[luminous_regnant]

"Well, I suppose we're hanging out until Angela can leave with us, so we can answer questions."

[self_composed]

"There's an other-universe version of you too, in my world," Stella tells Junia, "only she's older, and not an angel because angels are mostly a here thing. Unless I'm wrong? Glass?"

[thaumobabble]

"No, she looks templatey," agrees Glass, "if you recognize her you're probably not wrong."

[pythbox]

"Who are you all? Where are you from? What does it mean for a place to be another universe? How did you get here? Why did you get here? Are you all named Isabella and does that confuse you as much as it does me?"

[inherpiety]

"You couldn't bring Elspeth, guys?" Keziah says to the peal. "They're like my mom, but from other places," says Keziah. "They're from all different worlds with a bunch of names I can't remember. You can get to other universes with magic doors like the one they made, and there used to be another way that worked better but it broke. They're here to get my mom to do some thing with all of them, I guess. Most of them are named Isabella so they have nicknames and they call my mom Angela so they don't get confused."

[luminous_regnant]

"Elspeth is occupied. Harley was in a bad spot."

[pythbox]

"...I see," says Junia. "It is good to meet you, Isabella...s."

[she_sells_seashells]

"We call ourselves Bells," supplies Shell Bell. "It's nice to meet you, too. Did anyone brainphone Angela? Are we waiting so we don't surprise her or something? Keziah, is your dad busy too?"

[inherpiety]

"As far as I know he isn't," allows Keziah. "But we've been in here for a while." She flicks the music machine off.

[incanted]

[Hey Micaiah,] says Aurora to everyone in the room plus Micaiah. [Will anything delicate be disrupted if we brainphone Angela right now?]

[yovahs_kisses]

[Depends what you mean by 'delicate'. Hi! It's been a while!]

[incanted]

[It has! If the brainphone's not public she probably has more trouble than some of us reacting to multiple conversations at the same time, is the thing.]

[bellfounding]

[Yeah, I carry on three or four conversations as a matter of course but people know what's going on if I suddenly frown or smile or whatever.]

[yovahs_kisses]

[She's with the Jansai. Better leave it for now.]

[beheld_beauty]

[All right. Please let us know when we can talk to her. After this we're going to see what happened to the welcoming committee. In the meantime, a new Bell has an alternate time-sync solution which she'd like to plug in if that's all right.]

[yovahs_kisses]

[Yeah, go ahead. Hi, new Bell!]

[giftedandtalented]

Tab winks up to the spaceship and plugs in the Kersible. [Hi to you too! I'm Tab.] And she's back with the others.

[yovahs_kisses]

[Cute name. What's your story?]

[giftedandtalented]

[I'm from this world that Harley accidentally Sueported to, that's how everybody found me was they were looking for him. I named it Gift. Harley did not have a nice time in it, unfortunately.]

[yovahs_kisses]

[That's sad. What happened?]

[giftedandtalented]

[We've got an alt of Chelsea, and the world was already taken over with her as an instrumental part of it for hundreds of years before I was born, by the Gift Libby. He landed right smack dab in front of Chelsa.]