counterfeit

[onceandforall]

This. This is a good bar.

She does not mind taking counterfeit currency and she sells everything.

Bella is going to exploit the fuck out of that but first she is eating really, really good pad thai and finally talking to a person who is a) interesting b) not someone she has already talked to a lot in the last... several years. Lovely friendly bar who makes a lovely delicious pad thai! Bella will have to try opening that door at that moment again in the past.

Comments

[whatamithinking]

"With your scintillating company to console me? Never."

[onceandforall]

"...I am trying to think of a better response to that than some vague innuendo about how consoling my company is."

[whatamithinking]

"I am still vaguely surprised I came up with a semi-competent flirt."

[iamnotpolaris]

"If you guys are moving on to innuendo I'm heading outside."

[onceandforall]

"It was meta-innuendo."

[iamnotpolaris]

"For now. I'd rather not be around when the real stuff starts up."

[onceandforall]

"Sure. Just don't go too far or it'll be hard for Edie to find you when she wants to re-sync your time and go home."

[iamnotpolaris]

"Noted." And she heads outside to poke at the lake.

[onceandforall]

"So, we could move on to actual innuendo but I feel like I should warn you that I am an awkward virgin and double-check that you aren't weirded out by the thing where I'm technically a rock."

[whatamithinking]

"...As in your body has fossilized somehow or as in you're living in your jewel thing?"

[onceandforall]

"The latter. I've got a range of 100 meters on controlling my body from it. I've seen girls who lost their gems for whatever reason and as soon as it goes out of range they slump over and the body starts dying; if it gets all the way to dead they have to make a new one, and if they don't have the magic to do that... Anyway, all my senses are as normal or better, I continue to have the subjective impression of being located somewhere behind my eyes, etcetera, I could just imagine it creeping somebody out."

[whatamithinking]

"If you had been partly fossilized that might have creeped me out; if someone steals your gem thing and you start dying that might creep me out--actually my overall emotional reaction to that would be a bit more energetic than 'creeped out' implies--technically storing your soul in a pretty jewel does not creep me out."

[onceandforall]

"Okay, cool. It has other shapes, too, when I'm tromping around in jeans and a t-shirt it's just a ring, and it can be a sort of egg thing when I'm dowsing or cleansing it - although my new spell apparently doesn't care what shape it is."

[whatamithinking]

"An egg thing?"

[onceandforall]

"Yeah." She pulls it off her hand and it shapeshifts into an ornamental purple egg-shaped thing in a metallic casing. "Like so."

[whatamithinking]

"Oh, wow, that's gorgeous."

[onceandforall]

"Thanks."

[whatamithinking]

"The alien things are definitely creepy, but I wouldn't say the rock itself is, no."

[onceandforall]

"Oh yeah. They're soft and cuddly and it's not until you know they're evil that you notice they don't fucking blink."

[whatamithinking]

"I think Emily was only interested in petting it because she was basically modeling it as an inanimate object."

[onceandforall]

"Yeah, that's a pretty reasonable thing to do, really."

[whatamithinking]

"In case there was any doubt, they were doing the fantastic adorableness on purpose as a manipulation tactic. And boy did it work."

[onceandforall]

"Yeah... that was pretty obvious in retrospect after I learned what they were up to."

[whatamithinking]

"But regardless of the paradoxical creepy cuteness of the aliens, the soul gem isn't, um, an impediment for its own sake. And I am also an awkward virgin, if there was any doubt."

[onceandforall]

"So we have company. ...Consoling company."