why is there a word for that

[alicornucopia]

Finnah's just arrived at work to open the store for the morning shift; she has her apron on but hasn't put her hair up yet. She lets in the customer who always takes half an angle to determine that he wants four buttercreams, again, and then nips into the back to tend to her hair and check the overnight progress of the rock candy.

This isn't the back.

But that -

No, he's too tall to be Mial, if this is a Mial prank it's a stupidly elaborate one.

"Okay, I give up," she says, "what the hell?"

Comments

[onceandforall]

Bella will allow shoulder-looking.

[gloriousdawn]

"Apparently all the short boys are me," Solvei mentions, "except for that one," she gestures to Mark, "who's apparently Sis. And they kept asking me intrusive personal questions I don't want to answer. Maybe yours will be better behaved."

[onceandforall]

"Are you well-behaved?" Bella asks Linya.

[isthisart]

"I will ask you plenty of personal questions, but I think you will mind less. It's a pity you missed the other two of us."

[gloriousdawn]

"They also claim to have varyingly portable magic. I'm not sure how much I trust them."

[unmarred]

[onceandforall]

"...Well, how me are you? For example, is your name also Isabella Marie Swan, because if it is we have to think of something else."

[isthisart]

"I'm you down to the three questions unless you're the odd out, but I am from another planet and time so there are differences. Name inexact - there was an Isabella, but Marie and Swan are just you, I'm Linyabel Miriat Vorkosigan. Unless Bar tells me that you are just a convincing stunt double -"

She is your alt.

"- thank you, Bar, then you don't have to trust me much at all, I'll just trust you instead, how does that sound?"

[onceandforall]

"...Sounds good. And me-ish. I dunno, Solvei, someone would have to be trying really hard to fuck with us like so, wouldn't they?"

[gloriousdawn]

"Okay, yes, they would," says Solvei. "And Mark seems very keen to help me solve my problems. Cheer up, Mark, it's not as bad as all that."

[unmarred]

"...From my outside view, I can only conclude that it's worse," says Mark. "What's happening to you?"

[gloriousdawn]

"Again with the intrusive personal questions!"

[isthisart]

Meanwhile:

"Here, Isabella, have a holo-pen with magic textbooks on it. ...Bar, maybe you can help us with electrical backwards compatibility so she can charge the charger base."

[onceandforall]

"I prefer Bella," says Bella, sitting next to her alt and investigating the pen while a suitably universal power converter appears already configured for twenty-first century America. "You explained the door, how does the bar work?"

Very well, thank you.

Giggle.

[isthisart]

"She can produce near-arbitrary things - nothing magic, alive, enormous, or too hazardous, no arbitrage, otherwise very accommodating. First drink is free, everything else costs, but assume you have unlimited funds. I invented the holo-pen."

[gloriousdawn]

"And what exactly is a holo-pen?"

[thisvorlunatic]

"Really, really useful!" says Miles.

[isthisart]

Linya draws a squiggle in the air. "I'm not sure how informative saying it's like a comconsole only it's yea big and does this can be, but that is the usual summary."

[gloriousdawn]

"I'm getting a reasonably clear picture," says Solvei.

[unmarred]

"She wants one," says Mark.

[isthisart]

Linya hands her the pen catalog that Mial abandoned when he started playing the pens game. "Pick your color."

[gloriousdawn]

She glances over the selection. "Silver, fountain option. Please."

[isthisart]

Linya gets one from the bar and hands it over with a charger and power converter.

[gloriousdawn]

"Thank you very much."

[unmarred]

Mark sighs.

"Bella, is it? Do you know the nature of the horrible disaster shadowing Solvei's life? I don't ask that you tell me, but do you know?"