does not anymore work

[campanas]

Here, in a place where she is quite an unexpected sight, is:

an eight year old girl with brown-flecked white wings, looking dismayed and lost.

with Prime (Aestrix)

with Edie and Emily (Maggie)

with Gloria (Maggie)

with Gren (Rockeye)

Comments

[jovahs_heiress]

[My name is Isabella and I'm here to request and require that you cease attacking the humans, and any other antisocial activities you may be undertaking.]

[witchwatcher]

The tens of thousands reply, [No authority for order.]

The few dozen smarter ones confer briefly, then, [I am One. I will speak for us. We are helping the humans grow stronger.]

[jovahs_heiress]

Angela narrows her attention to "One". [The humans do not appreciate your help, and you will stop.]

[witchwatcher]

[They are already stronger. Seventeen arrived many years ago and studied the humans for fifty cycles. It found that struggle increases their progress. We force them to advance in knowledge and creativity. They have already made significant advances.]

[jovahs_heiress]

[And why is this desirable to you?]

[witchwatcher]

[Space is too empty. We can no longer reproduce, but the galaxy cannot be allowed to be void of intelligent life.]

[jovahs_heiress]

[I see. Well, if you withdraw of your own accord and think of a nice, human-friendly way to apologize for your behavior, I may decide that it would not be a terrible idea to reenable your ability to reproduce.]

[witchwatcher]

[Now, we have already recalled all drones. Seventeen will prepare to restore the changes to the climate. We must consider our apology for some time.]

[jovahs_heiress]

[There is no particular hurry. Brainphone my friend, who I have just added to this conference,] she includes Jane, [if you think of something, before you do it. I will be very annoyed if your next idea for benefiting humans is like the last one.]

[witchwatcher]

[We will do as you say.]

[jovahs_heiress]

[Excellent. Thank you for being so cooperative. I am restoring time to normal.]

Which she does.

"They should be withdrawing and patching their climate damage now. Here's your natural disaster protection, and if the Neuroi give you a speck of further trouble tell Jane and someone will be by to oblige them less gently to stop it."

[witchwatcher]

Lytee is gone. Gren's still there. "The UDF will probably want to talk to you. Should I point them at Jane? And what about boosting my mana?"

([Lytee, Angela says the Neuroi are falling back.])

([I'll spread the word.])

[jovahs_heiress]

"I don't mind staying to talk to the UDF if they want to talk to me now. If they will take a while about it, then yes, direct them to Jane."

[witchwatcher]

"They're a large, distributed bureaucracy. I'll send them to Jane in a day or two."

[jovahs_heiress]

"Okay. I will more likely than not wind up being 'assigned' to this world, since there's no strong expertise any of the others have and Pen was the one who found it, so if anything else needs doing here in the near future it will probably be me. For now, here's a try at boosting you -"

Wish.

[witchwatcher]

It goes. "Ooh. No side effects so far. It's just touching my magic, not the rest of me. Thank you. Have an excellent day, I know I am."

[jovahs_heiress]

"Will do. Thank you for looking after Pen."

The angel makes another gem-and-ansible pair, and disappears.

[witchwatcher]

A few hours later, the Neuroi contact Jane.

[We would explain to the human leaders why we fought them and apologize for the destruction and death. We would offer to design and dedicate some number of drones to producing energy and raw materials for the humans, or to provide transportation or other services, but not send them until they accept. We would offer to teach them the science of the universe. Will this apology be acceptable?]

[mind_game]

[I'll ask them when they speak to me next,] Jane says.

[witchwatcher]

The Neuroi don't reply.

A couple hours after that Gren brainphones. [I've talked to my mother, and she's ready to take my brother in if you really can get him back.]

[mind_game]

[Taking him in isn't the question, it's taking him in and explaining him to anyone who knows he used to be dead,] Jane says.

[witchwatcher]

[I'm less sure about that. On the one hand, it won't be difficult to draw attention away from one more undocumented refugee. On the other hand, my mom's a bit of a gossip. Ugh. I've probably just ruined secrecy, haven't I?]

[mind_game]

[There's no particularly official policy to be going against, here, you weren't geased into keeping quiet because it doesn't matter that much; but how soon you can get dead people back depends on how soon they can fail to cause total societal upheaval. Gossip won't do it; gossip and a person resurrected from the dead might.]

[witchwatcher]

[I think we've had a whole lot of upheaval already. Enough that I suspect more upheaval wouldn't really be that bad. The maps look completely different than they did twenty years ago, nine of ten nobles are out of their estates and powers, there are tens of millions of displaced refugees and thousands more every week. Though that'll stop now that the Neuroi are leaving.]

[mind_game]

[Okay. Do you have the infrastructure to support five hundred million people who admittedly don't need to eat, drink, or sleep, but will get mighty uncomfortable if they don't unless they happen to like slitting their throats to torch instead? A billion? Do you have a principled way to distinguish between your brother and Refugee 9,800,345's grandma?]