so there was this deck of cards, right

[lexicality]

Jessica's house is cute. Lexi could see doing a lot of her homework here, listening to the calming chatter of gossip and getting help from Jessica on math (Bella's no help there) and helping Jessica on English. Forks isn't so bad. She doesn't mind the rain as much as Bella does.

Jessica goes to pee before they even start their assignment, after just introducing Lexi to her mom and dad as "one of Chief Swan's kids", and Lexi doesn't want to do work by herself or she wouldn't have come over in the first place. She sits on the couch and plunks her bag down and waits. There's a random deck of cards over there; she picks it up and flips through it. She's been trying to learn to bridge-shuffle.

Comments

[incanted]

+Well, there are certainly more comforting one-liners a massively powerful planetbusting entity could have chosen to utter,+ Bella remarks after a pause.

[cardistry]

+Yeah, and?+

[incanted]

...Bella decides she'd best not risk answering that. She probably shouldn't have responded in the first place.

[cardistry]

So, tense uncomfortable silence, then?

[incanted]

Looks like!

[lexicality]

"Are you even talking to him?" Lexi asks, unwrapping a stick of gum. "I can't tell."

[incanted]

"Was. Conversation sort of dwindled," Bella says.

[cardistry]

[lexicality]

"Don't you have to learn all the magic and then go around being Supergirl?"

[incanted]

"I'm letting my mana recover so I can get an idea tomorrow of how much percentage-wise various spells take," Bella says.

+Brilliance, are you okay?+

[cardistry]

+...Kind of not really?+ says Brilliance, sounding a little nervous.

[incanted]

+Something I said?+ she asks.

[cardistry]

+Yeah,+ he says. +I mean. Look, I'm not gonna blow up your planet, I hope we're pretty clear on that by now, but there are a lot of ways you could force me not to if you weren't sure and they are all really nasty, so - I scare easy on this one.+

[incanted]

+You made it pretty clear that at least one prior attempt at forcing you not to destroy a planet didn't work,+ Bella points out.

[cardistry]

+...uh, speaking of not being the most comforting thing somebody could say...+

[incanted]

+I'm just saying if you don't trust my ethics, there's also my sanity available to stop me. I'm still not going to torture you.+

[cardistry]

+Okay, but now I feel like if you found a way that would work but would still kind of count as torturing me, you might go for it,+ he says. +I don't know you, I don't know your ethics, you seem pretty nice but what do I even know about what nice looks like? I'm a goddamn magic wand! The last time I had a conversation with someone else who could think was four hundred years ago and probably involved begging them not to hurt me again, which by the way, has never worked before I met you!+

[incanted]

+...Not killing six billion people is extremely fucking important, but since not torturing people is also extremely fucking important I would have to be looking at a clear risk before I'd start trading them off against each other,+ Bella says slowly. +I will get jumpy if you say certain things, but it looks like that's kind of mutual, right, and being jumpy doesn't lead directly and unerringly to torturing you.+

[cardistry]

+I am not going to blow up your planet. I am not going to blow up your planet!+ says Brilliance. +I am really, really, really not going to blow up your planet! You could blow up your planet if you fired me up and cast the right spell, you'd probably even live through it if you transferred out quick enough, does that sound like fun to you? I bet it doesn't! Because you don't want to blow up your planet! And neither do I!+

[incanted]

+I'm pretty used to caring more about people not dying than anyone else around me,+ Bella says.

[cardistry]

+Yeah, well, maybe you do,+ says Brilliance. +I don't know, I'm not you. But last time I blew up a planet, I didn't even have a concept of six billion people. I'm not sure I could do it again even if I had to. And I don't have to, your house is not a secure lab in the middle of a military complex, I can just transfer out if I get scared enough. Wouldn't even have to knock down a wall.+

[incanted]

+That's good, I guess.+

[cardistry]

He sighs.

[incanted]

+We good? I want to help you not be scared of me, I don't know what to do to that end though.+

[cardistry]

+Not be scary?+ he suggests weakly.