she_sells_seashells | in between moments

Shell Bell has not found Milliways by herself since the occasion on which she first met Sherlock.

Today, after eight months, she does.

She makes sure that Sherlock and Tony are both awake, finds that they are but do not want to join her in the bar today unless she finds something interesting, checks her coin supply and finds it sufficient, and steps through.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

sailorheavymetal

"Sure," shrugs Darcy.

From:

she_sells_seashells

[Like so,] says Shell Bell. And she turns invisible and teleports to wherever Tony Stark might be on this world.

From:

pythbox

Tony Stark is in bed. With a sleeping red-haired woman. He has a tablet PC and is quietly fiddling with some kind of schematic on it; she is cuddled up with her face turned the other way and her shoulder pressed to his hip. The blanket covers her body and his legs.

From:

she_sells_seashells

Hmm.

That's a weird thing in his chest. She wonders what it is.

Also, he doesn't seem really prepared to receive visitors. She hops to just outside the house, and attempts to add the local Jarvis to the brainphone; this'll simply fail if there isn't one, but she thinks her world is the odd one out there.

From:

pythbox

Success.

From:

she_sells_seashells

[Hi, Jarvis! I am a friendly visitor from another world.]

From:

poeticterms

[Are you by any chance invisible?] he inquires dryly.

From:

she_sells_seashells

[Yep, could you see me anyway? I do that when I'm teleporting somewhere unfamiliar. I apologize for appearing in Tony's room, but I didn't know where he was and the way the teleportation works is I specify a unique location, like 'near Tony'. I have one of him on my world and I heard that this world had one too so I have come to be sociable, but since he doesn't seem ready to receive visitors right now I thought I'd go through you, figuring there was probably a you too.]

From:

poeticterms

[And here we are,] says Jarvis. [Shall I let him know he has a visitor?]

From:

she_sells_seashells

[Yes please!]

From:

poeticterms

After a few seconds, Jarvis inquires, [Is your time here limited?]

From:

she_sells_seashells

[I don't know. Do you know how to open a door to Milliways at will, like the other Jarvis? Because if you don't, I have as long as my friend is willing to hold the door for me.]

From:

poeticterms

[No,] he says, [it's safe to say I don't.]

From:

she_sells_seashells

[Then my time here is limited unless I want to let my friend close her door and wait until I find a door myself, which has been known to take up to a year and a half.]

From:

poeticterms

[Limited it is.]

More time passes. Not very much of it.

[Do you have a name?]

From:

she_sells_seashells

[Bell Swan. People call me Shell Bell.]

From:

poeticterms

[One moment, please.]

From:

she_sells_seashells

Bell waits patiently, invisibly, outside the house.

From:

poeticterms

[You may teleport into the living room,] says Jarvis. [Visibly, please.]

From:

she_sells_seashells

Shell Bell visibles and teleports at the same time into the living room.

From:

pythbox

Tony is dressed and sitting on the couch. The arc reactor glows faintly through a black T-shirt.

"So," he says, "what kind of other world are we talking about here?"

From:

she_sells_seashells

"Mine, you mean? I call it Atlantis, and it has a one of you in it, only he's my age and he has a twin sister. It's in the future relative to here, and it was until recently a pretty nasty totalitarian state where it wasn't just post-apocalyptic, but I have since acquired magic and fixed the place up a bit."

From:

pythbox

"Good for you," he says with a quirk of a smile. "Just so we're on the same page: by 'fixed up' you do mean 'took over'? The crown's a hint," he explains.

From:

she_sells_seashells

"Oh, did I leave that there? This is only an illusion crown, I left my real one at home." She waves her hand through it by way of illustration. "Yeah, I go around wearing a crown, calling myself Empress of Atlantis, putting bad guys on the moon. There's lots of me, in various worlds, too, and this is a thing we do is take over worlds and be nice to them."