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]

She doesn't really know what happens to dead people in Milliways, but Bar didn't say "it's okay as long as he lives through it", she is not this guy's personal friend, he said the Hunger Games sounded like his idea of a good time, he has to have loaded the thing or at least known what was in it... yeah, she can't think of any good reason to dwell particularly on the fact that he may be dead. Lynnis is dead because of her too. Is there a meaningful first here? Maybe. Maybe not. She's got stuff to give Tony.

(Lynnis would have volunteered in place of anyone - she was up that year - and this guy would probably have gotten someone else to shoot him if Bell had turned him down. This analogy makes sense to her.)

Bell goes down to stash the swag in her room - she can invite the twins to see it later - and goes to check in on Sherlock, who has been left with her sign for some time now.

[sicaria]

"No takers so far," says Sherlock. "Who did you kill while you were gone?"

[she_sells_seashells]

"He said he was called 'the Joker' and he seemed enthusiastic about his proposed deal of me shooting him and taking his stuff. He's weird. You think he's dead? He could've just passed out from what I saw."

[sicaria]

"I'm not sure of it," she says. "But you smell like a lot of blood and don't have very much on you. That suggests someone was doing a great deal of bleeding close by."

[she_sells_seashells]

"Well, I have seven guns and accessories for Tony to take apart and cannibalize or improve, now. And some knives. And a pretty bolt of fabric that let me get it all down the stairs in one trip. And I guess now I know I can maybe-kill a guy, at least if he literally hands me a shotgun and asks nicely."

[sicaria]

"A good start, all in all," says Sherlock.

[she_sells_seashells]

"Yeah. For certain values of 'good', I guess. Tony's still working?"

[sicaria]

"So I assume."

[she_sells_seashells]

"Okay. Unless you're bored and wanna switch places I'll make another excursion, then."

[sicaria]

"I am not bored."

[she_sells_seashells]

"Good," says Bell cheerily, and off she goes in search of someone else she hasn't talked to yet. Who's shown up in the past hour?

[pythbox]

Well, there's that girl sitting at the bar who's a little older than Bell, bears a passing resemblance to her actually, and has an impressive and incongruous war hammer hanging from a braided leather belt around her waist. The rest of her outfit is pure twenty-first-century Earth, but those two things look like they came out of a century rather earlier than that one.

[she_sells_seashells]

Shell Bell squints at her. She doesn't think this is an alternate, but maybe they're related or something - she's never met anyone who claimed to be related to one of her, either. No, probably this is just someone who happens to be pale and brunette. "Hi," she says, sitting next to her. "I'm Shell Bell. Panem, Earth, year 72 by our count, something else by everyone else's. Who're you?"

[pythbox]

"Darcy," she says, with a friendly smile. "New Mexico, Earth, 2011. What's up?"

[she_sells_seashells]

"Nice to meet you, Darcy! My life back home is actually pretty dull" (so far; and Bell doesn't like to bring up 'please give me stuff' this early) "so I just talk to everyone when I get here to compensate. Your hammer is nifty. Doesn't look like the sort you build houses with."

[pythbox]

"My hammer is the niftiest," she says, patting it fondly. "It's magic, and from space."

[she_sells_seashells]

"I like both magic and space! Tell me all about it," says Bell.

It looks like the sort of thing that is not mass-produced. Especially if being "from space" is a relevant property. But its details could suggest things about what else there might be to be had.

[pythbox]

"It flies and shoots lightning," Darcy says smugly. "And it has a cool name I totally can't pronounce, but it doesn't mind if I call it Mewtwo."

[she_sells_seashells]

This reference does not register at all with Shell Bell. "It flies around? By itself? It can mind things?"

[pythbox]

"Technically not by itself," she says. "But yeah, there's like... a very, very small number of people who can pick it up. And giving it a dumb nickname didn't take me off the list, so I think I'm good."

[she_sells_seashells]

"Do you let people try to pick it up if they ask nicely?" Bell asks.

[pythbox]

"All the time," she says, grinning. "But not off Bar, 'cause that would be mean."

[she_sells_seashells]

"Is it staggeringly heavy to everyone else, including Bar, or something?"

[pythbox]

"She says it's uncomfortable," Darcy says with a shrug. "And if I put it down on her and something happened to me, it'd be stuck there until another hero came along."

[she_sells_seashells]

"That's fair," says Bell. "Heroes? That's the criterion?"