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]

"It does seem suspicious." Bella steps back from the door (it reappears), then approaches it again; the door continues to exist until she gets very close to it. "And now it seems more suspicious."

[thisbrokenworld]

"I wonder why the door is choosing to fuck with us in this way."

[onceandforall]

"Couldn't tell you."

[thisbrokenworld]

"Anyway. Now I have to decide whether to risk throwing Ghys's gem in the sun or whatever, or just fuck off to parts unknown."

[isthisart]

"Suns not in use qua suns are available, albeit inconveniently."

[thisbrokenworld]

"And anyway, if I get somebody throw it in the sun I can't be that sure that she's dead and nothing weird happened to make her instead not be dead."

[middlingalong]

"You don't know that hitting it with a rock won't work."

[thisbrokenworld]

"Yeah. But I don't know that it will, either. Hard to verify."

[thisvorlunatic]

"There exists such a thing as a transworld scry..." says Mial.

[onceandforall]

"I assume that does what it sounds like it does and doesn't conjure waffles, but how do you propose to apply it?"

[thisvorlunatic]

"Well, to verify the deadness of this Ghyslaine person to," a vague wave at the nameless not-Solvei, "her satisfaction."

[onceandforall]

"Ghyslaine is a rock. We do not know what a dead rock looks like. And the door won't let us ask the furball."

[thisvorlunatic]

"Right, but we can at least rule out the possibility that incinerating or disintegrating the rock somehow caused it to reappear intact next to its body," says Mial. "Which seemed to be the sort of thing she was worrying about. Because if no such thing happens, the rock will remain in a separate universe from the body and consequently unable to operate it, is I think the going theory? For that matter a transworld scry can also verify that that part worked out as predicted."

[onceandforall]

"Yeah, as far as that goes it should work. Furball was pretty explicit about the range limit."

[thisbrokenworld]

"He's right, though, I'll believe it a lot more easily if I can actually watch her body being inoperable from another universe."

[onceandforall]

Nod.

[unmarred]

"Why'd Solvei keep dodging the subject of your Ivan, by the way?"

[thisbrokenworld]

"Well, because she's also been dead for two centuries, you see, and Solvei's upset about it."

[middlingalong]

"Aw," says Ivan.

"Does Solvei want a hug?" asks Aurin.

[thisbrokenworld]

"...maybe."

[abeance]

"I mean, perhaps it won't help, as we're all boys and you said she, but we do still have arms."

[thisbrokenworld]

"It's true, you do."

[middlingalong]

Ivan waves one of the arms that he has.

[thisbrokenworld]

"Okay. Yes. Solvei wants hugs."

[gloriousdawn]

Behold Solvei. She is so huggable.