among her own kind

[she_sells_seashells]

Shell Bell finds Milliways once when she is eighteen. She has been there for two days now, setting up her sign ten minutes out of every waking hour, wiping down tables for her quarters in the staff area, eating buttery potatoes (she has been told that this is a complete nutrient package, for humans). Her wand is holding a bun of hair in place on the back of her head. Her shells are stashed safely in her room; she's budgeting carefully and she'll pay her tab when she leaves.

No one's talked to her due to the sign yet. They don't always. She sets it up anyway, like clockwork, so everyone gets the chance.

Comments

[she_sells_seashells]

"I have backups," Bell says cheerfully.

[sicaria]

"Congratulations."

[she_sells_seashells]

"I guess I'll make another circuit. I appreciate you manning the sign for me."

And off Bell goes, looking for more people she hasn't investigated yet.

She talks to four, three briefly and one with interminable rambling. None produce anything she's interested in; the first and third don't even let her get far enough that she asks. She swings back by the sign to look in on Sherlock.

[prima_sequentem]

There is someone reading the sign just as Bella walks up.

[she_sells_seashells]

"Hello," Bell says, smiling brightly, sitting down, and plucking away the away notice.

[prima_sequentem]

"What exactly do you advise people about?"

[she_sells_seashells]

"Taking over the world, usually. One person was only interested in a town. On several occasions I've adapted to fit my advice to fit things like taking over corporations instead, handling uninhabited islands that can be colonized from scratch without any native competition, keeping one's own mindscape orderly, and a world takeover plan that would be suitable for novelization."

[prima_sequentem]

"Fascinating," says the stranger. "Was that a metaphorical or metaphysical mindscape?"

[she_sells_seashells]

"I'm not entirely sure. I wasn't invited to visit it. But my guess is on the latter, since anyone so keenly interested in the advice is probably not dealing with metaphor."

[prima_sequentem]

"How about criminal organizations," she says. "Any of those?"

[she_sells_seashells]

"Not so far, but I'm happy to try," says Shell Bell.

[prima_sequentem]

"Hmm," she says speculatively, and then smiles.

"Oh, where are my manners. I'm Elizabeth."

[she_sells_seashells]

"Shell Bell," says Bell. "My alts usually go by Bella and wind up as magical space empresses of one sort or another."

[prima_sequentem]

"Impressive resume," says Elizabeth. "But no magical space empire of your own?"

[she_sells_seashells]

"Not yet. I'm working on it. No magic native to my world, you see, I have to get it here - that's the sort of thing I trade advice for."

[prima_sequentem]

"What other sorts of things do you trade advice for?"

[she_sells_seashells]

"Interesting technological devices - interesting relative to what I can get at home, not relative to what the customer has. Sometimes money, when the aforementioned are unavailable. Right now we could also use suitably qualified allies or advice, as we're in the process of attempting to take over my world at a resource disadvantage."

[prima_sequentem]

Elizabeth looks intrigued.

"What kind of disadvantage?"

[she_sells_seashells]

"You name it," says Bell darkly. "Let me put it this way: the government we're planning to overthrow hasn't encountered a hiccup of significant-scale resistance from the parts of the country where we live in the last seventy-two years despite routinely kidnapping kids our age and younger and killing most of them for the entertainment of the viewers back home."

[prima_sequentem]

"Harsh," says Elizabeth.

[she_sells_seashells]

"Yes. Rather. And of course there are the other effects of malicious totalitarianism - the only reason I'm reasonably confident about the lack of rebellion is that Bar will loan me archives of Capitol newspapers, not just the District Four Gazette, and there aren't any prolonged, suspicious 'resource shortages' that I'd expect the media to cover for unrest with even there. You can see why we'd like the Capitol in question to go away."

[prima_sequentem]

"Completely," she agrees.

[she_sells_seashells]

"Do you," Bell says, all smiles, "need advice about a criminal organization?"

[prima_sequentem]

"Probably not," she admits. "But I might want to get your perspective anyway, just for fun."

[she_sells_seashells]

"What's fun worth to you?"