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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.
she_sells_seashells
she_sells_seashells
"I've never met one either, but I've heard a fair amount about my template and its variants secondhand, and we tend to be empresses with considerable magic power to throw around. Lucky me, I get born in a world with no magic."
she_sells_seashells
"Maybe you don't have one of me," shrugs Bell. "Or she's too young to have taken over yet."
she_sells_seashells
"Uh, be nice to her," advises Bell. "We are by all accounts good at running worlds. People tell me this even when it's clear I'm not an empress and don't have magic and won't smite them for being insulting, so it's not just nervousness talking."
she_sells_seashells
"That's good then. What time frame are we looking at for borrowing your Sherlock and Tony, may I ask? Is this a lean-out-the-door-and-yell, or a hope-we-run-into-each-other?"
prima-sequentem
"More the latter. First I have to convince them to be interested. I'm afraid Sherlock doesn't like me very much."
she_sells_seashells
"You'll have to tell him about this one and her Tony. And also about how very terrible a world he'd be helping to fix," Bell says. "I hope that would at least help."
prima-sequentem
"Oh, he'll be fine once I explain it to him. It's getting him to listen in the first place that's the trick."
she_sells_seashells
"Until next time, then, or do you want some fraction of your entertaining advice up front?" Bell asks.
she_sells_seashells
"All right. Here's hoping we see you later," Bell says pleasantly. "It was lovely to meet you. Best of luck with minimal-assassination crime."
ferratus
Time passes. Tony finishes his communicators.
He hands one to Bell, explains its functions, collects Sherlock, and goes home.
He hands one to Bell, explains its functions, collects Sherlock, and goes home.
she_sells_seashells
Bell stays in Milliways.
Sherlock told her she didn't need to live on buttered potatoes anymore. She doesn't splurge ridiculously, but she eats two - then three as she becomes accustomed - meals a day, and after a couple of weeks, she adds a dessert. She keeps scrubbing tables, because otherwise she'd have to move to a regular room; it doesn't take up much of her day and she can do it while she's still groggy after waking up in the morning. She reads. She watches video of things. She records hundreds of conversations of various levels of interest. She sits by her sign ten minutes of every hour. And she collects things.
When she finally peels herself away, not daring to let herself fill out any more lest her parents notice the combination of age and weight gain before she can run off to "Atlantis" and stop worrying about them, it's been four and a half months Milliways time.
She scans her recorder back to re-listen to everything she told it the day before she found Milliways, so she won't make clumsy mistakes with words like "yesterday".
She buys a crate that looks like it could have fallen off a cruise ship. She fills it with canned goods that look like they could occupy such a crate. And she buys a little bottle of sand to sprinkle on it because she's not going to have a chance to conceal this item's origin at the actual beach.
She opens the door, and lugs the box after her into her bedroom.
Sherlock told her she didn't need to live on buttered potatoes anymore. She doesn't splurge ridiculously, but she eats two - then three as she becomes accustomed - meals a day, and after a couple of weeks, she adds a dessert. She keeps scrubbing tables, because otherwise she'd have to move to a regular room; it doesn't take up much of her day and she can do it while she's still groggy after waking up in the morning. She reads. She watches video of things. She records hundreds of conversations of various levels of interest. She sits by her sign ten minutes of every hour. And she collects things.
When she finally peels herself away, not daring to let herself fill out any more lest her parents notice the combination of age and weight gain before she can run off to "Atlantis" and stop worrying about them, it's been four and a half months Milliways time.
She scans her recorder back to re-listen to everything she told it the day before she found Milliways, so she won't make clumsy mistakes with words like "yesterday".
She buys a crate that looks like it could have fallen off a cruise ship. She fills it with canned goods that look like they could occupy such a crate. And she buys a little bottle of sand to sprinkle on it because she's not going to have a chance to conceal this item's origin at the actual beach.
She opens the door, and lugs the box after her into her bedroom.
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