(Untitled)

[not_lugosi]

A week to go, a week to go... That's the refrain that's been echoing through Bela's head all day. A week to go until her "one year to go" countdown.

She can't take much more of this, except she can and she will. She simply doesn't want to. The fucking door to Milliways finally showed up earlier tonight, and she slipped in to claim her usual booth

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[walksthebounds]

Jamie is staring wistfully at the martini from the next table. Bar still won't give him any. He's nearly sixteen now! Or four hundred, depending on how you look at it, and either way, it's hardly fair.

[not_lugosi]

She raises her glass to him. That was probably a mean thing to do. Oops.

"Jamie, right? Have any marshmallows on you tonight?"

[walksthebounds]

- they've met before!

She has a name!

That . . . Jamie can't remember for the life of him.

"No marshmallows," he says, apologetically, "and apparently no memory either - you've got me, and I know we've met, but your name's gone straight out of my head." He puts his hands together, comically plaintive. "Sorry, I'm awful, forgive me in advance?"

[not_lugosi]

"No worries. It's been a long time."

She has an excellent memory, is all.

"I'm Bela."

[walksthebounds]

Jamie taps the side of his head with his forefinger.

"I've got it now," he promises, and grins. "Pleased to meet you again, Bela. Hope you've at least become a marshmallow convert, since last time?"

[not_lugosi]

"I think they are an acceptable form of killing yourself with pure sweet, yes."

[walksthebounds]

"I don't tend to go as far as the suicide-by-marshmallow," Jamie remarks, "but it would be a hell of a way to go."

Jamie would prefer not suicide-by-anything if he can help it!

[not_lugosi]

"There are worse ways," she says, and if her smile falters just a bit, it snaps right back into place.

"So I can't remember your story. I mean, where you're from, what you do, the whole spiel."

[walksthebounds]

"Probably because I didn't tell it," Jamie says, with a laugh.

"It's not much of one really. I'm not from anyplace in particular -" It's true, nowadays. "- and I wander around a lot. Do a bit of this, a bit of that, wherever they'll hire me."

This is all accurate! He might get to the bit where it involves multiple worlds in a minute. Maybe.

"What about you?"

[not_lugosi]

"You seem awfully young for an itinerant lifestyle," she says. But then, she wasn't a whole lot older when she started her wandering. Maybe he's older than he looks.

"As for me, it's still the same old, same old. I'm an arts and antiquities dealer."

Which is also accurate! She might get to the part where the arts and antiquities are supernatural items in a minute. Maybe.

[walksthebounds]

"I'm older than I look," Jamie informs her - maybe convincingly, or, uh, maybe not.

"Arts and antiquities, eh? Not bad - you make a decent profit on that sort of thing, in your world?"

[not_lugosi]

"I make a crazy profit," she laughs. "I track down unusual items, and my clients pay me ridiculous amounts of money for my time."

[walksthebounds]

"Really? Ridiculous amounts?"

Jamie has a sort of scheming glint in his eye, by this point.

People have called Jamie commercial-minded. To those people, Jamie says, they don't know the value of a pound when you want a sandwich.

"How unusual is unusual?"

[not_lugosi]

She knows that scheming glint!

"Things that were thought lost, things that were lost, things that people hoped everyone else thought was lost. That kind of unusual. Sound like an appealing line of work?"

[walksthebounds]

"Well, I was just thinking," Jamie says, leaning back with a smirk on his face.

"Things that come from different worlds, things that maybe do queer stuff you wouldn't see most places - do you reckon that counts as unusual?"

[not_lugosi]

"It depends on whether you can find a buyer or not," she says, and she is all seriousness. "If you expend time and effort acquiring an item, it's smart to know exactly who you'll be selling it to. For me, I know what my clients want. When they ask, I know exactly, and I can develop a profile based on those requests. Of course, there are some things that will always sell. So you could have a good racket going on, if you wanted it."

She's guessing he means the items would come from the different worlds into Milliways. It wouldn't matter to Bela whichever way. A kid's got to make a living.