Entrance Post!

[brainventilator]

[Pre-OOM: Business or Pleasure?: Part 2]

Oh there ain't no rest for the wicked
Money don't grow on trees

[ Part 1]Mordecai isn't expecting a lot from his room aboard the shuttle. The flight wasn't the best, the ship wasn't the nicest, and the price was the only argument for his choice. That having been said, when the masked bandito pushes open the

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[unique_clayr]

There was a girl seated nearby, long dark hair swinging casually over her shoulder, obscuring her face. She glanced up a little when he came in, but now she was staring at a book, thick and bound with leather. There was a small frown on her face.

[brainventilator]

Mordecai stands around for a minute or so, looking back at the door, then at the bar again, then once more at the door. Maybe he took a wrong turn somewhere?

"Um." He raises his voice, hoping to catch somebody's attention. "EITHER YOU PEOPLE ARE LOST, OR I AM. ISN'T THIS ROOM #35?"

He was so sure it had said #35 on the door, and he knows his key fit that door specifically, so why all the confusion?

[unique_clayr]

Usually Lirael was not so eager to get involved in other people's problems, thought the bar was rather empty. Besides he was distracting her. A very quiet voice emanated from the booth to the left of him.

"Erm...is there any chance you can keep it down."

[brainventilator]

Mordecai almost doesn't hear the quiet little voice coming from his left and is about the call out again when the words reach him, forcing him to turn and find their source. He isn't sure if he's in the wrong or they are, but his mood is not improving either way.

"What?" His eyes land on a small girl sitting by herself, and he can't help but frown. "Aren't you a little young to be in a bar? Also, where the hell is Room #35?"

[unique_clayr]

"I'm reading." She stated, inching towards a stammer now that he's looking at her. It was obvious. After all, there was the book. She held it up to demonstrate.

"This isn't that kind of Bar...it's..." She trailed off.

Should explaining these things really be left to a fourteen year old girl? Lirael doesn't think so.

[brainventilator]

Mordecai frowns, impatient with her unhelpful answers. He wants to find his room and go to sleep, not engage in intellectual conversation with a little girl.

"It's what?" He demands, arms crossed. "How is this even possible? The ship isn't that big, especially not the part I'm in."

[unique_clayr]

"You're not on a boat anymore." She swallowed, mouth dry, palms sweating. A strange man intent on answers was bad enough. An angry masked man who'd never been here before was even worse.

"Look out of the window." She was speaking to him, but her eyes fluttered nervously back to the book; a safety net.

[brainventilator]

"What? What boat?" His frown deepens, and he's about to comment on the fact that the ship didn't have any windows when he glances around, if only to make his point.

Then he sees The Window, and Mordecai's eyes go quite wide behind his mask.

"HOLY F-" To him, it looks as if the ship is in some serious trouble. Whatever's happening outside that window looks to be too close for comfort, but he watches it for a few moments and nothing seems to happen. A few more minutes and he begins to relax, his eyes still on the Universe ending as he speaks.

"...girl, what the hell is going on?"

[unique_clayr]

Lirael let out a small sigh, barely more than a breath and slipped her forefinger between the pages of the heavy book.

"Can you see the door?"

[brainventilator]

"What? Yeah." He rips his eyes away from the window, flicking first to the door, then to her. He's reluctant to face her and turn his back to the...whatever it is going on outside, but he can hardly hear her when he is facing her directly.

"Why wouldn't I be able to see it? It's right there."

[unique_clayr]

"Sometimes people get trapped here." She absolutely failed to mention that it happened to her on her first visit. She didn't over-share, especially not with people she'd just met.

"They call it the Bar at the end of the Universe; Milliways. People come here not of their will."

You learned things by osmosis, overheard things you wouldn't know otherwise. Lirael was just as good at being un-noticed here as she was in her own world. Very few people payed attention to a silent book-reader and she had discovered, it was quite a useful skill - not being noticed.

[brainventilator]

He isn't sure when they started to delve into the realm of crazy shit and fucked up nonsense, but he knows for sure that they're knee-deep in it now.

"...maybe you're confused. This is a spaceship. The Universe is not ending, and I came here because I wanted to sleep in my own bed. Do you think you could just help me out a little?"

You know, instead of being a tiny crazyperson?

[unique_clayr]

Her hair fell forward on both sides, sliding over her shoulders to partially obscure her face. Deep down, though extremely deep down past all the fear, Lirael felt an insane desire to give him a 'look'. The kind of look that told him exactly how much of a dimwit he was being.

Someday she would become something, gain the Sight and then she would perfect that 'look'. At least that's what she told herself. For now, she had to settle for being a librarian who doesn't like to speak.

"There are beds upstairs." She finally said.

[brainventilator]

"I don't-!" He begins to raise his voice, but cuts himself off before he can go any farther. He's supposed to be heading off-planet, and as long as he's on the ship it really doesn't matter if he's in his room or at the optical-illusion of a bar they seem to have forgotten to tell him about.

A few deep breaths later, and Mordecai is ready to not be the guy yelling at a little girl.

"Am I still on the ship?" First things first.

[unique_clayr]

"No." The 'look' almost sneaked out, peering up from beneath two straight black eyebrows. It was probably just Mordecai's imagination though, because if he looked again he would see nothing more than a perfectly calm expression.

"There are rules here..." She really didn't want to be explaining this to him, but since there was no-one else around. "No violence, no business and no--"

A furious blushing lit up her cheeks and she looked away, fingers fidgeting against the edge of her book.

"No...lying with anyone...in the bar." She's not about to tell him it's fine to do it in his room. As far as she was concerned, no-one should be doing that.

[brainventilator]

Teenagers.

His face is hard to read from behind his mask, his eyes almost impossible to see with the red goggles in the way, but he's rather amused by her obvious discomfort (once he figures out what she means by 'lying with anyone').

"So the same rules most bars have then," he replies, more to himself than to her. "If I'm not on the ship, then where am I and how'd I get here?"