0.hidden track: the rotator slips

[rotwood_reaper]

[OOM, arguably pre-canon: If fate is a millstone, we are the ones that make it turn.]

The door opens to admit a dark-haired slip of a girl in black. From the look of her, this may not be where she was expecting to find herself. Somebody may want to clear that up.

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[heyfootballhead.livejournal.com]

"Uh," says Arnold, "it's the bar at the end of the universe. Welcome to Milliways?"

Excuse him for being a little startled; even leveling down from the icon, this is the most radical reaction he's gotten to far to the shape of his head.

[rotwood_reaper]

"Milliways? End of the universe?" Her hand drops to the sword you may or may not have noticed at her side. "What's going on? Is this Hell?"

[heyfootballhead.livejournal.com]

"I'm pretty sure you don't get to walk out of...well, you know." Arnold tries not to stare at the sword. "This is just a sort of meeting place. Lots of different worlds meet. Most people find it hard to believe at first."

He did, at least.

[rotwood_reaper]

"...'Lots of different worlds'? How many worlds are there?"

[heyfootballhead.livejournal.com]

"I don't know," Arnold admits. "There must be a lot, since there's so many people here."

Kid logic get!

[rotwood_reaper]

Kid logic does not resemble our adult logic. It's better.

"It's certainly a place where the living and the dead mingle, I can sense that much. But how is that permitted?" And then she has to acknowledge something she's been trying not to. "...and how can you see me?"

[heyfootballhead.livejournal.com]

"It's permitted because the landlord permits it, and I can see you with my eyes." He points at them for emphasis.

See, these are easy questions!

[rotwood_reaper]

"But... you're alive. It shouldn't be possible for you to see me, eyes or no eyes. And I can't imagine the authorities allowing free passage between Soul Society and the world of the living."

[heyfootballhead.livejournal.com]

"The rules are different in Milliways sometimes," Arnold says. "Weird stuff goes down."

[rotwood_reaper]

This is a Rukia who has not yet started studying the contemporary vernacular of this world. As such, some figures of speech may escape her comprehension. "What comes up to take its place?" That, it appears, was one of them.

[heyfootballhead.livejournal.com]

For a moment, Arnold looks totally lost. But then a proverbial (not literal, sadly) lightbulb goes off.

"Nothing," he says with a smile. "It's a figure of speech. It means that weird stuff happens around here."

[rotwood_reaper]

"You can say that again," she says; then, with what might become a smile if she allowed it to achieve its full potential, she adds, "But you don't need to."

[heyfootballhead.livejournal.com]

"Aw, ruin a good joke, why don't you," he laughs. "There are rules here, though. Just three."

[rotwood_reaper]

"I'm glad to hear it. What are they?"

[heyfootballhead.livejournal.com]

Arnold holds up three (of his four) fingers and ticks them off as he speaks.

"No violence, no sex, and no outside business."

Beat.

"Oh, and the first drink is free."

[rotwood_reaper]

"No outside business? But..." She gestures toward, among others, the old man in brown robes that resemble her own shihakushô and the auburn-haired girl eating a rather large salad. "They're dead. If somebody doesn't send them on to the Soul Society..." She shudders.

[heyfootballhead.livejournal.com]

"I think dead people live here," Arnold says with a shrug. "It's just a thing, I guess. But if you bring outside business in you get thrown in the cells!"

Which sounds exciting to a nine-year-old, but isn't nearly so much so in practice.

[rotwood_reaper]

Rukia's not interested in being imprisoned either. She'd prefer to find some excuse to avoid such a thing.
Little does she know, it's going to happen eventually anyway.
"...if the dead here have lives of their own, as they would in Soul Society, I guess you're in no danger."

[heyfootballhead.livejournal.com]

"I've never been in danger here," Arnold says innocently. "It's a pretty calm place."

'Pretty calm' might be a little bit of an exaggeration.