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.

Comments

[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.