Day 42, Afternoon: Pearl’s Beauty Salon Hair and Nails

[haplesstracker]

The claws thing had been bugging Scourge ever since Depth Charge had used them to pick him out for intimidation for reasons that were unclear and ideally would become clear with as little violence as possible. He'd settled on it being some kind of alternate universe thing, but since nobody else had ever heard of him due to circumstances Scourge

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[damned_town]

"And, my dear, you simply wouldn't believe what I heard--" The sound of gossip abruptly cut off at the jingle of the bell on the door, and the two women by the counter turned to face the newcomer with expressions that warred between "surprised" and "wary." The man (man? here?) who had just entered was not at all familiar, and therefore had to be one of those mental patients they'd heard about.

Pearl herself, though, smiled brightly from her throneseat behind the counter and lifted one hand in a cheerful wave that set her bracelets jingling. "Hello, my dear!" she called. "Was there something I can do for you?"

[haplesstracker]

Scourge flicked a glare at the chattering women before restraining himself and giving them a polite smile. Definitely needed a change, even the regular humans thought he looked weird. He set his shoulders and straightened up, trying to look like he belonged here and totally knew what he was doing.

"Yeah. I kinda need a tune-up on these." He held up a hand with palm facing inward, showing off his obviously inferior nails to the human in charge. "They're pretty blunt and cracked, and the pink's really not my thing anymore. So I guess I need a, um, a manicure." He held out one of the pieces of paper that seemed to pass as credits around here.

[damned_town]

The two customers stared blankly at him for a moment, then exchanged glances and hurried out the door again with hasty farewells to Pearl. The door didn't close behind them quite fast enough before they started chattering again, this time a chorus of, "Oh, my, did he really?" and "Pink?!"

For her part, Pearl merely bid the pair a friendly farewell before bustling out from behind the counter and giving the man's nails a thoughtful frown. "My goodness, no. That color is just all wrong for your skin tone, really. And just what have you been doing to your poor nails?" She accepted the coupon almost as an afterthought, and shooed him toward the manicure table.

[haplesstracker]

Scourge huffed as he heard the remnants of their conversation. Yes. Pink. It was a very scary color in a culture where pink was the same color as your blood, but apparently amoung humans it meant you looked like a ninny. Scourge would be happy to be rid of it.

At least the nail mechanic was actually treating him reasonably. Scourge allowed himself to be guided to the table and sat down before it, both hands splayed across the platform.

"Just been being active," he said, falling back on the vaguest answer he could think of. "You know, usual stuff." Clawing people's legs, fighting spiders, fetching chemicals for evil overlords, that kind of thing.