she_sells_seashells | among her own kind

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

sicaria

"I see what you mean," Sherlock acknowledges.

From:

she_sells_seashells

"But," Bell shrugs, "you're probably better at operating in unfamiliar environments than I am. If nothing else, you can beat people up and take their stuff. I can only do that if I want to set them on fire. And that's pretty extreme and doesn't work as a harmless threat anywhere that doesn't commonly have magic wands, and hence people who can counter my stick. And you could expect to find a door sooner."

Bell is still a little upset about that. She scuffs her foot on the floor in a halfhearted kick.

From:

sicaria

"Yes. But I suppose it also matters why one might be visiting another world in the first place, and the trustworthiness of one's escort."

From:

she_sells_seashells

"Yeah. I haven't found anyone who I trusted that much yet. To also let me go back, anyway. It would probably have been easy to find an acceptable person to outright adopt me when I was little and cute. And they'd have tried to make sure I never went back to my parents, for my own good. Because Panem's no place to live." She shrugs. "It's even possible they would've been right, but I avoided going anywhere else from visit one."

From:

sicaria

"Wise."

From:

she_sells_seashells

"Maybe. What's Tony off getting?"

From:

sicaria

"Parts," says Sherlock. "It seems our conversation has inspired him somehow."

From:

she_sells_seashells

"Ooh," says Bella.

From:

sicaria

"Expect something useful to come out of it."

From:

she_sells_seashells

"I will. I'll be terribly disappointed if he just makes us celebratory hats."

From:

sicaria

—She laughs.

From:

she_sells_seashells

"Unless they're useful celebratory hats," acknowledges Bell.

From:

sicaria

"Unlikely. But possible."

From:

she_sells_seashells

"They could be hats of invisibility," suggests Bell. "That would be very useful indeed."

From:

sicaria

"Unfortunately, I don't believe he has the means."

From:

she_sells_seashells

"Oh well. I guess we'll see."

Bell retrieves her marker and adds to her sign. Other services may be outsourced, subject to cooperation of Milliways.

From:

sicaria

"Should we list the other services, I wonder?"

From:

she_sells_seashells

"I don't think so. If clients have strong opinions about how they want to conduct their world takeovers or whatever, they might start lying to me to get me to call you or Tony in. Then I can't evaluate cost-benefit correctly or even give the best advice. Most of my business isn't directly from word of mouth but it's not negligible."

From:

sicaria

"A valid point," says Sherlock.

From:

she_sells_seashells

"Besides. I haven't met any others of me personally, but I've met folks who live under their empires. I think they're mostly... not the sort to call in assassins. Not as an advertised service, anyway. It can't help if my parallelism is doubted."

From:

sicaria

"I see."

From:

she_sells_seashells

"They build pretty utopias and style themselves Empress. Sometimes there are Emperors too. There is at least one Princess. Which is weird to me. At this time I'd consider accepting any risk of having children unconscionable. I guess it might be different if I lived in a pretty utopia."