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

[sicaria]

"I would be happy to."

[she_sells_seashells]

"Thanks!" Bell obtains a bit of card, writes Up and about - back soon - consult my colleague with requests, puts the sign back up and props the note on a blank part of it, and goes a-wandering.

[manofmyword]

How 'bout him?

Over by the lake door, tucked into a booth, sorting an improbably large jar of jelly beans into a number of small bowls by some impenetrable algorithm that definitely doesn't take colour as a primary feature in any straightforward way.

[she_sells_seashells]

Bell does talk to everyone. Even if they look like they might be spinal-fluid-drinking types.

"Hi," she says politely. "I'm Shell Bell. Panem, Earth, year 72 by our count and something else by everyone else's. Who're you?"

[manofmyword]

He chuckles.

"We-ell," he says, tipping his head to one side (no makeup today, but smudges remain here and there) and smiling. "You're familiar, is what you are."

[she_sells_seashells]

"Oh, have you met one of me?"

[manofmyword]

"Called herself Bella," he says. "Empress of something-or-other. Cute boyfriend. Didn't like it much when I fucked him."

[she_sells_seashells]

Bell blinks. "I - do most people? Like it when you do that?"

[manofmyword]

"What, fuck their boyfriends? I don't do it that often."

[she_sells_seashells]

"Okay. You don't remember what she was Empress of?"

[manofmyword]

"Mmm... some kinda magic empire?" he hazards.

[she_sells_seashells]

"I think most of me are empresses of some kind of magic empire."

[manofmyword]

"Well, this one's the one who's dating a younger, prettier me. That narrow it down any?"

[she_sells_seashells]

"I don't know. I haven't met any of them personally. I only hear second- and third- and fourth-hand."

Bell briefly considers being squicked by the idea of having sex with one's own alt, but then decides there's no particular reason to.

[manofmyword]

"So what're you empress of?"

[she_sells_seashells]

"I'm not Empress of anything."

Bell contemplates the fact that she's currently plotting the violent overthrow of her nation's government.

"Today," she continues.

[manofmyword]

"Atta girl."

[she_sells_seashells]

Bell laughs. "You still haven't told me who you are."

[manofmyword]

"If you tell people you met the Joker," he says, "they'll know who you mean."

[she_sells_seashells]

"Okay," says Shell Bell, "so is that you telling me that if I want to know about you, I should stop talking to you and go ask someone else?"

[manofmyword]

"Nah, not at all. Want a jelly bean?" he offers.

[she_sells_seashells]

Bell has never had a jelly bean before. They don't... exactly... look like food. An hour ago she wouldn't have turned down anything that might be food. At this moment, she says, "What are they made of?"

[manofmyword]

"Sugar, mostly."

He picks one out of a bowl—electric blue—and pops it in his mouth.

[she_sells_seashells]

"Mostly?"

[manofmyword]

"They taste like all different stuff. Some good, some bad, some just weird."