Double first entrance

[he_believes]

When the door next opens it doesn't swing, it slides. The space on the other side is the confining box of an elevator, holding a pair of nonplussed FBI agents

Comments

[sunbaked_baker]

The redheaded baker setting the tray of cinnamon rolls (each roughly the size of a human skull) on the bar looks over as the two step in.

Despite wearing suits instead of khaki, their manners remind her somewhat of the SOFs back home.

"Uh-oh," she says, wry but sympathetic. "You two new?"

[she_questions]

Dana turns her head at the smell more than the voice. Really, this place is disconcerting, but the presence of something so welcoming makes it less so.

"Hi, yes. I'm Special Agent Dana Scully, this is my partner, Agent Mulder."

[he_believes]

Mulder flashes his badge automatically.

"Maybe you can help us. We were riding an elevator, and didn't expect it to open… here."

[sunbaked_baker]

"Agents...?" she says, with a faint look of bemusement. The badges... yeah, she suspected government, but they aren't any sort of badge she's ever seen. The letters F,B, and I don't mean anything to her.

Despite her accent being most definitely North-Eastern United States-ish.

"Well, this is Milliways. It's not where you were," Rae says, setting a couple of cinnamon rolls on a plate and settling it on their side of the bar, where they can reach. "Milliways is the bar at the end of the universe - it likes to kidnap people, or at least show up where they don't expect it to."

[she_questions]

Scully just blinks, smiles, blinks again.

This woman seems nice enough, but the language she's speaking? Seems to be more in Mulder's realm of -- interpretation.

"Kidnap," she echoes, an edge to her voice.

[he_believes]

Mulder doesn't miss that edge. He keeps close to his partner.

"You're saying that this place abducts people."

[sunbaked_baker]

"Well... yeah, sometimes," she says, giving a tilt of her head that passes for a shrug (she'd gotten out of the habit of shrugging when she still had a unhealing knife wound on her chest, where now lies a shiny, curved scar, below her collar bone). "Usually when people first arrive. I was. Now I know to make sure any door I open in my world is opening to where it's supposed to, before I step through."

"But the most important question for you right now is: can you see the door that you came in by?"

[she_questions]

Scully turns and looks.

"The elevators. Right there. Are you saying, you're not from DC?"

[he_believes]

Mulder jumps in quickly after his partner, adding, "Are you saying you may be from a different world?"

[sunbaked_baker]

"Well, at least you aren't stuck here," Rae murmurs. She had been bound over a month, the first time she came in.

"I'm saying that the door opens to many different worlds, different versions of the same world, even," she clarifies. "This bar is at the end of the universe, where all the parallel universes meet before they go boom. Anybody from anywhere and anywhen can walk in."

She steals a fresh, still-warm cinnamon roll for herself, tearing off a piece before eating it. "And for the record, I'm from Earth. Just not yours. Nobody's from DC anymore, in my world. I'm from New Arcadia."

"I'm Sunshine."

[she_questions]

"Thank you, Sunshine," Scully offers, turning her awareness back to the room.

End of the universe.

Anywhere, anywhen.

Mulder is going to be absolutely insufferable after this.

"So do you work here? Is there someone in charge we could speak to?"

[he_believes]

Mulder simply frowns, letting Scully get her answer first, framing his next question carefully.

[sunbaked_baker]

"I bake here occasionally, to help pay for my room and board. I'm a professional baker back home, but that still doesn't give me enough that I can easily shell out blinks, staying here, without supplementing my income."

Rae nods to the cinnamon rolls she set out for them. "Feel free, by the way." Feeding people is what she does, and newcomers here usually need all the small comforts they can get. This place isn't really anything but disquieting, otherwise.

And Sunshine makes foodgasm-worth cinnamon rolls. Little rays of comforting light in a darkened world.

"As to who's in charge, I have no idea. I've seen some part-time bartenders, occasionally, but that's it," she says, taking another bite of her own cinnamon roll. "Oh, but that reminds me. As newcomers, your first drink is free - people usually need a stiff one, finding themselves here for the first time - and there are rooms for rent, upstairs. The bar is sentient, so if there's no bartender on duty, you can order food and drink directly from her." It. Whatever.

[she_questions]

Scully does pick apart one of the cinnamon buns and takes an experimental bite. It's delicious and she hums a little under her breath.

"A sentient bar," she says, when her mouth isn't full. "How exactly does that work? Is it an artificial intelligence of some sort?"

[he_believes]

Mulder picks up a bun, but doesn't eat just yet. Perhaps it's paranoia, but he doesn't quite trust anything about this place.

He wonders aloud, "Who would have the technology to create something like that?"

[sunbaked_baker]

"No one I know," she says, munching on her own cinnamon roll. "It's magic, anyway. There isn't any tech-gadgetry to find."

"Could I get a glass of milk, please?" Rae asks, just to make a point, taking the cold glass that materializes by her hand. "Thanks."

(ooc: Storming here. Must disappear. Am loving this thread, though. Is slowtime all right?)