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She wonders if Coin would be late to fewer things if she gave her a teleportation power.
She's saying so, to Sherlock.
And then instead of the ruins of flooded Europe she's in a featureless white room facing some grumpy person in a blue robe, wearing everything she was wearing, less her coin bandolier but including her crown, and something's wrong, her thoughts are slow and won't speed up, her memory's as slippery as it ever was before she met Stella, and how did she get here, why doesn't the brainphone work, where's Sherlock?
Where are her coins? Where's her magic? She can't teleport either, not even across the room - she bites her lip just a little and she can't even remember how moving pain left to right is a thing and it goes right on stinging without regenerating -
Where is she?
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arenaria
"That must've sucked," she says sympathetically.
arenaria
"As soon as it was safe I told them I was alive," she says. "They were upset, but they're okay now. Or at least they are if my guess about why my apartment looks the way it does is correct."
"...Okay," says Eights.
arenaria
"Sorry, I can't always tell the difference between people being interested in what I have to say and just being polite."
She shrugs.
"I mean, I feel for you, I just don't completely know what you're talking about."
"I mean, I feel for you, I just don't completely know what you're talking about."
arenaria
"Oh. I have a very small and very nicely decorated apartment. I think my girlfriend brought me back to life after I died and it worked, sort of, just - forked me, one there and one here, instead of getting me out of here. I'm going to check for her in the library directory, though, in case it's what the guide said it looked like, a suicide. But if I'm right my parents are never going to know that I died, because there'll be a live one of me, and I sure wouldn't tell them."
"...Sure sucks for you," she says reflectively.
"Milliways?"
She blinks.
"Yeah, I used to see that place all the time when Jazz was around. Not for my last thousand or so, though. I think Chainsaw still catches a door occasionally."
She blinks.
"Yeah, I used to see that place all the time when Jazz was around. Not for my last thousand or so, though. I think Chainsaw still catches a door occasionally."
arenaria
"...Oh."
Shell Bell's not sure if this is good news (Milliways can happen here!) or bad news (it hasn't happened lately, and lately is measured in millenia!).
"I used to go there a lot. I met a bunch of my alts and swapped magic with them and visited strange worlds and - and if I found a door at this point I'd never come back."
Shell Bell's not sure if this is good news (Milliways can happen here!) or bad news (it hasn't happened lately, and lately is measured in millenia!).
"I used to go there a lot. I met a bunch of my alts and swapped magic with them and visited strange worlds and - and if I found a door at this point I'd never come back."
"Wouldn't blame ya," she says.
arenaria
"You stayed. I guess the obvious disadvantage of here does not apply to you."
Eights grins.
"Nope!"
"Nope!"
arenaria
Shell Bell wraps her arms around herself. "Thank you again," she says quietly. "I think I'll go to the library now."
"Bye," says Eights.
The library also has its own station, and there are a few people passing through at the same time as Shell Bell.
Its lobby is much bigger than the Crescent's, and a little less friendly. The chairs aren't so comfortable. The librarian, a man wearing diamond earrings, sits behind his desk looking bored and slightly disdainful.
Its lobby is much bigger than the Crescent's, and a little less friendly. The chairs aren't so comfortable. The librarian, a man wearing diamond earrings, sits behind his desk looking bored and slightly disdainful.
arenaria
Bell goes up to the librarian.
"Excuse me," she says. "I just died a few hours ago and I'm completely new to everything. Can you tell me where I should start?"
"Excuse me," she says. "I just died a few hours ago and I'm completely new to everything. Can you tell me where I should start?"
He blinks at her.
"Not really," he says. "Not without some idea of what you're looking for."
"Not really," he says. "Not without some idea of what you're looking for."
arenaria
"I need to know how to operate here. Safely, insofar as that's possible. I want to know about the administration, although I'm told asking won't get me far. I'm also interested if my guide was mistaken when she told me there's no way to observe or communicate with the living."
Despite himself, he begins to look interested.
"Admin operates out of the tower," he says. "But whoever told you not to bother her was right. And nope, your guide was right too. We get dead people and dead things; we don't get pretty little pictures of the dear not-yet-departed."
"Admin operates out of the tower," he says. "But whoever told you not to bother her was right. And nope, your guide was right too. We get dead people and dead things; we don't get pretty little pictures of the dear not-yet-departed."
arenaria
"My loved ones are in all likelihood never going to depart," Shell Bell says. "Although I would like to look them up, in case I am wrong. Dead things, what does that mean, what makes a thing dead?"
"Broken, destroyed, whatever," he says with a shrug. "This building existed in some live world somewhere before it showed up here, and then it burned down or got demolished. Every book in the stacks came from a live world and got thrown out or spoiled or burned."
arenaria
"Would things magically banished from existence appear here? What determines where they appear? And how do I look up my girlfriend to see if she's died?"
"If it stopped existing, then yep," he says. "Things appear where it makes sense. Food in your fridge or your kitchen cupboards, shampoo in your shower, books in the library. New buildings out at the edges of the old ones. If you want the directory, the computers are over there—" he points down a hallway.