No amount of reassurance can do what time can; Julie knows that intimately. Abby will have to live here for a while before she actually feels like the world hasn't ended. And another thing that Julie has learned is that there is a huge difference between your world shattering around you, leaving all the shards to be cleaned up, and your world being replaced entirely. The latter takes up a lot more attention and energy than the former. And there's fewer reminders of what was lost.
It was always looking at the empty houses that made her feel the worst. Whole towns filled with nothing but death. Food still on the table, cars still on the street. Abraxas doesn't constantly make her think of what used to be.
Luckily for Abby, things here don't work the same way they do back home. It's not the seamstress who swoops in, but the little robots. They circle her body, making little chalk marks, adding pins, taking measurements. The human seamstress only steps in occasionally, to double-check the work.
Julie lets her hand drop back to the bunny's head. "If there's a drinkin' age, I never heard of it," she says. "I mean, no one is gonna give a six-year-old hard liquor, but pretty much everyone drinks ale and wine 'round here. Just don't get sloppy drunk or you're gonna get the mother hens on your case quick. Euphemisms and shit, I guess the biggest thing is just remember that none of our culture means anythin' to them. Or to a lot of the other Summoned. Shit you never even thought twice about before, you're gonna have to explain. And you'll have questions for their shit, too."
She snorts at the question, and smirks into the mirror. "Well, 'get a coffee' still stands. Tea or wine's more common, but guys will basically still ask if you wanna get a drink. Netflix and chill, not so much. Probably more likely to ask if you wanna go to a gamblin' hall, or to ride horses outside the city. Or they'll just ask you to come over."
Glancing back up in the mirror, she adds, "I mean, if you wanna fuck one of the natives, you're probably gonna wanna be the one initiatin'. Always be the one in control with the native men. We scratch some kinda weird exotic fetish for 'em, at least in my experience. That's when they ain't straight-up nervous around us. Great for tip money, though."
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It was always looking at the empty houses that made her feel the worst. Whole towns filled with nothing but death. Food still on the table, cars still on the street. Abraxas doesn't constantly make her think of what used to be.
Luckily for Abby, things here don't work the same way they do back home. It's not the seamstress who swoops in, but the little robots. They circle her body, making little chalk marks, adding pins, taking measurements. The human seamstress only steps in occasionally, to double-check the work.
Julie lets her hand drop back to the bunny's head. "If there's a drinkin' age, I never heard of it," she says. "I mean, no one is gonna give a six-year-old hard liquor, but pretty much everyone drinks ale and wine 'round here. Just don't get sloppy drunk or you're gonna get the mother hens on your case quick. Euphemisms and shit, I guess the biggest thing is just remember that none of our culture means anythin' to them. Or to a lot of the other Summoned. Shit you never even thought twice about before, you're gonna have to explain. And you'll have questions for their shit, too."
She snorts at the question, and smirks into the mirror. "Well, 'get a coffee' still stands. Tea or wine's more common, but guys will basically still ask if you wanna get a drink. Netflix and chill, not so much. Probably more likely to ask if you wanna go to a gamblin' hall, or to ride horses outside the city. Or they'll just ask you to come over."
Glancing back up in the mirror, she adds, "I mean, if you wanna fuck one of the natives, you're probably gonna wanna be the one initiatin'. Always be the one in control with the native men. We scratch some kinda weird exotic fetish for 'em, at least in my experience. That's when they ain't straight-up nervous around us. Great for tip money, though."