She tilts her head at Torok and then grins. "That could have been a guess, or politeness referencing me as the host since I hadn't explained to Palla yet, but was it?"

"—sorry, was what—what?" he says, blinking in total confusion.

"You used the correct name without having been informed which of the five of us was fronting, and without even having met three of us. And I'm curious now."

"...oh. I mean, I wasn't thinking about it, I just... saw you? I guess maybe I could've been wrong. But you looked like you."

"And now?", Hailey asks. Her voice is honestly similar to Ruby's, but a bit tighter, sharper, and not as rapidfire.

"—huh. I don't think I've met you before, have I?"

"No, you haven't. I'm Hailey. And we're rather impressed with you now."

"...do people mistake you for Ruby a lot?? I guess if Ruby were..." He scratches his chin in thought. "...different??? Or maybe I only saw her for a few minutes and she's more like you usually?"

"She's not always that rapidfire. People who know us well can tell, but not usually from just two words."

"Huh. It feels obvious to me but maybe I'm just fooling myself. Hard to say."

"You're from a world where souls are verifiably known. We're betting you can actually tell."

She shakes her head, and laughs harshly. "Fuck. We spend a couple years fighting off imposter syndrome in our old world, getting invalidated by random assholes sometimes, worrying we're just lying to ourselves and we're really a singlet, and then you can just instantly tell."

She sits down hard on the beach, flops back, and cackles. It's not really clear whether it's a happy laugh or not.

"...you okay?" he ventures.

She gets her laughter under control, sits back up, and shrugs, a lopsided smile on her face. "We haven't been in a long time, probably, but I think we will be."

"Well. I'm glad you will be, then."

Splash. "One of these days I'm gonna catch you two fucking on my blanket, aren't I," Palla remarks. "Here's your fish."

Hailey grins mysteriously at Palla. "Who knows? Thanks for the fish, though. Be back after lunch, probably. Take care!"

She bags the fish into the empty bag she brought, and strides off toward Hazel's place.

...Torok shakes his head to banish his splutters and trails after her.

"D'you want me to carry the vegetables?" he thinks to ask. "I think there's just about room in my pack and it's got to be less awkward than lugging that sack around. Is it vegetables?"

She passes him the sack with a smile. "Yep. Ingredients for lunch."

Once they're a bit further out of earshot, she adds. "I probably won't fuck you. Sable, Maya, or Neo might. I have a Thing about touch that takes a while to get through for any individual person, and Ruby's shy about sex."

He stops briefly to get the vegetables into his pack, which does indeed fit them all, barely.

While he's playing Veggie Tetris he says, "I hadn't really thought about it until Palla brought it up. I think, uh, in Mareth it seems like when people want to fuck me they're usually super obvious about it so if somebody isn't being super obvious about it I assume they probably don't want to? And none of you has tackled me to the ground and ripped my clothes off, so," shrug.

She shrugs. "We're more about relationships than sex, and tend to want the former before we seek out the latter. Plus we're mostly only into women. Not exclusively, though." She gives him an appraising look. He is quite handsome.

"...well, all right." He smiles a little and finishes closing up his pack and shoulders it again and holds out the empty sack.

Empty sack goes into satchel, and they continue to walk. "What'd you like to do in your spare time, before you landed here?"

"...crimes, mostly. I like Mareth better."