Olympians above, she’d just been a [i]child.[/i]

The thought swims out of the swamp of Ember’s cognition. It’s followed up by the flailing splashes of “was I just a kid back then, too” and “oh Father am I now old enough to think about how young we were?” Not to say that the Princess Redana thinks of herself as An Eternal 17-Year-Old Maiden, but the markers and signifiers of age, the victories of maturing, are difficult to track on an odyssey like this. It’s one thing to look at Dany, tossing grapes up into the air for Ember to catch with a snap of her jaws, and go: well, yes, [i]she[/i] is baby. But [i]I[/i] am the same person that I have always been. One day I will certainly be Old, that’s inevitable, but I’m very clearly still just myself.

And then Bella walks in, a teenager again, and the gulf between then and now yawns like a chasm.

A grape hits Ember square on the nose. Dany squeaks and fumbles, trying to recover it.

It is also becoming clear to Ember that it’s up to [i]her[/i] to overcome Bella in her multitude of forms. Unless any other Redanas would like to show themselves?

…

…

Shepherdess, maybe?

…

…

She graciously accepts both the necessity that it is time for her to step up and be the bestest girl (at the same time that she accepts a melon chunk from Dany, one of the nice orange ones). After all, the alternatives consisted of:
- Dany (unthinkable)
- Bella Fragment Chef (unthinkable)
- Dolce

…now, hold on, says a tempting thought in the back of her head. What was that bit about Dolce? Not that we could get him to sit on Bella, that would be fatal for the poor man, but… 

…it just might work. And its chances of working were roughly about equal with the chances of her taking Bella(s) on without a nap, a mug of coffee, and expert medical intervention, and also without the entirety of the Silver Divers backing her up.

“Hey, Bella?” Her [i]voice[/i] sounds crusty. Apollo shine on her. “Got a question. Can you tell Dany here what you’ve [i]always[/i] wanted to eat most in the whole wide world?

“…also I would like some of the wonderberry popcorn once you’re done.”