milliways_bar | (no subject)

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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. She's in black yoga pants and a blue cami; she hasn't left her flat in the last few days. Her leather jacket tops off her outfit, its pockets loaded down with the accouterments one needs to fight off demons of various walks of un-life.

She's on her second martini, but what the hell (no pun intended)? Come say hi.

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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?"

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

"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!

"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."

"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?"

"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.

"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?"

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

"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?"

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?"

"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?"

"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.

"The trouble for me is, I can't take the time any one place to build up clients for that sort of thing." Jamie spreads his hands, disarmingly honest. "Honestly, I couldn't run a racket. I can pick things up here and there easy, but I'd likely need a dealer to tell me what's worth something and pass it along."

Oh, really?

"What kinds of items do you think you'd be picking up?"

"Oh, all sorts of things." Jamie waves a hand vaguely. "Unicorn horns from the Caryatid Forest - they're a dime a dozen there - summoning beads for Xyrleg the God of Dismemberment, half-wish rings from Edvarton, five-foot transportation devices from Dharmvati . . . you name it, they've got it lying around somewhere."

"You could make a great deal of money setting up shop here. I expect people would be interested in purchasing - well, any of those things."

Including, perhaps, herself.

"The trick is finding out what people want. By that, I mean you talk to them, suss things out a bit, and then match up what you have access to with what they seem to want or need. You could do very well."

ooc: I am so sorry I dropped this. It was not intentional, and Bela has been quiet on me. Either fade here and bring it up later, or keep going?

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