in a forest of legs

[she_sells_seashells]

The second time ever Bell finds to Milliways, she is better prepared. She has a bigger bag of shells with her, and she knows that she'll need to pace herself with the food to stay as long as she can.

She is still six. As far as she can tell, she is the only child in the place - everyone else is an adult or at least in their mid to late teens.

Except - oh, there is a girl her age, over there. (Only maybe not. Last time she was warned that appearances can be deceiving.) But she's certainly worth investigating.

Bell drags her shells over in that direction.

Comments

[missnicegirl]

"I did not know that," says Matilda. "I want to know everything, which means I have to live forever, because there is infinity stuff to learn especially at Milliways."

[she_sells_seashells]

"If I figure out how to live forever, I'll tell you," Bell assures her cheerfully.

[missnicegirl]

"And if I figure it out first, I'll tell you!"

[she_sells_seashells]

"Great! Now we both have twice as many chances to learn it."

[missnicegirl]

"On average, yeah!"

[she_sells_seashells]

"I think I'm most likely to find that sort of thing here," Bell muses. "I'm pretty sure my world has no magic. And the only way I could get anywhere near the serious science would be to pass the removal tests and I don't want to do that because if you do that you get removed. And if you could gain a clam's powers by eating it somebody would have noticed already."

[missnicegirl]

"I don't know enough about my world yet to say really for sure if we have magic or not," says Matilda. "It could go either way."

[she_sells_seashells]

"If someone had hiding magic," Bell amends, "then maybe the Capitol wouldn't have found it and started using it, but I don't see how I'd find it either unless I had some finding magic from here to start with."

[missnicegirl]

"I have something that might be magic but I don't know if it is or not."

[she_sells_seashells]

"What?" Bell asks, sitting bolt upright.

[missnicegirl]

"Telekinesis," she says. "Or something that's a lot like telekinesis. I can move stuff around without touching it. But I don't know how it works, and I've never heard of anybody else who can do anything like it, so I don't know if it's really magic or something else."

[she_sells_seashells]

"That sounds like magic to me," Bell says, "especially if it's not just something that everyone can do where you're from. Lemme see?"

[missnicegirl]

Her book lifts up out of her lap and then settles back down again.

[she_sells_seashells]

"Is it hard? Can you do a bunch of stuff at once? What do you have to know about the thing to pick it for moving? Do you ever move things by accident or in your sleep? Can you feel the stuff you move? If you can't how do you track it?"

Bell then, quite out of breath, begins panting.

[missnicegirl]

"It used to be really hard but it got better with practice," she says. "I can do lots of stuff at once. I can move anything I can see, and sometimes stuff I can't see if I know right where it is. I never do it by accident or anything, only when I mean to. And I can't really tell if I can feel where it is or not, because I have to know where it is and where I want it to go before I can move it at all."

[she_sells_seashells]

Bell tilts her head. "I have to look at things to pick them up, too, at least if I don't want to just knock them onto the floor. But I can feel that I'm feeling them and not just knowing where they are, 'cause they have textures and temperatures and heavinesses and stuff."

[missnicegirl]

"It's a different thing from picking stuff up with your hands," she says, shrugging.

[she_sells_seashells]

"Well, yeah. Yours is magic. How fast can you make stuff go? We could borrow stuff from the bar to float, and a timer, and go outside and you can zoom it around!"

[missnicegirl]

"I haven't done that! Let's do that."

[she_sells_seashells]

Bell races to the bar, politely solicits an array of balls of various sizes and a stopwatch, and then frowns at the results, as she has no good way to carry six balls in her arms. "I think you might have to carry most of it," she says, picking up the stopwatch.

[missnicegirl]

The six balls float up into the air and commence following Bell around like a trail of ducklings, largest to smallest.

[she_sells_seashells]

Bell giggles and dashes out towards the door to the outside, looking over her shoulder and only barely not running into the doorframe or tripping onto her face.

[missnicegirl]

Her ball-ducklings match speeds with her, and zoom around her in circles when she stops.

Matilda follows, trailed by a similar line of books.

[she_sells_seashells]

"This is awesome," crows Bell. "Okay, so..." She picks up a stick and plants it in the ground, then runs to a distant point still visible from the original. Then she picks a spot between the two to stand so she can see each stick. "I'll time you, and you can start with the small stuff and move it as fast as you can from the first stick to the second stick! And then try the bigger stuff and we'll see if that's slower. Or it could be faster!"

[missnicegirl]

"Okay!" she says, and lines up all the balls hovering vertically over the first stick with the smallest one at the top.

Smallest ball: zoom!