4378/Public Transporation Is Hell or How I Met Bella

Public Transporation Is Hell or How I Met Bella
Date of Scene:	11 December 2020
Location:	A Queens Line Bus
Synopsis:	No description
Cast of Characters:	Bella, Mando

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Bella has posed:
Bella the Tempest, the Scourge of Europe, once washed battlefields with bloods. Resided in fancy castles and foreboding fortresses. She kept the highest of companies in vampire societies. Held discourse with Elders, leaders, most esteemed spiritual cultivators...and now...a prisoner! How sad, how tragic, that she would fall for such a tricky hex.

She saw humans readily set foot on these moving land boats. She got curious...but she didn't know there was no way out. The accursed thing kept moving, every now and then making brief stops with no rhyme nor reasons. No attendant came, no body offered to escort her out of this abomination of a chariot.

Sure, Bella might have stood up to walk towards the door every now and then when it opened briefly of its own volition, but she never saw the magic user operating it. Which means it could have easily been a witch!

So Bella winds up sat in the back of the bus, eyeing the door anxiously.

Mando has posed:
Mando is still wearing his Starbucks uniform after having worked a double, because, "Of course I'll cover for you Cindy.  No problem."  He mocks himself as he lugs a hamper of laundry to the bus stop, awkwardly balancing everything from liquid detergent to borax on top (and that's just on top).  A little sweat has formed at his brow, dampening his hair above his glasses.  Two older women give him looks of disapproval, but it's hard to say what for, because he almost misses the bus.

"Since when do buses come early?" someone remarks as they get on in the suddenly seemingly never ending parade of old ladies loading onto the bus like it's a geriatric field trip.  All powerful witches in their own right.

Of course, last and seemingly least, is Mando.

The bus driver sighs when he sees, "Boy!  I don't want to get paid minimum wage to stare at your ass.  Now come on."  Finally, the hamper gets freed from having snagged part of the door machinery.

"Here.  Sorry." Mando scans his bus card and starts moving through.  All the old ladies have taken up the spare seating.  Well, none of them made it to the back of the bus though.  He briefly weighs his options and takes a deep breath, wading through all of the old lady must and perfume to look down at the seat next to Bella.  "Anyone sitting there?" he asks, the trying to not make it awkward...making it awkward.

Bella has posed:
Bella was about to brave an attempt for the accursed door when more people board the bus. The witches, make her flinch, and for a moment she lingers in her back seat. But then Mando boards the bus, finally, someone she could easily place. The boy was clearly a servant class. Maybe his Lord and Lady gave him a special charm to command the very opinionated door.

She looks intensely at Mando as he approaches the back of the bus, her electric blue eyes unique and quite piercing. Of course this only serves to make it all the more awkward. As Mando looks at the sit next to her, Bella squints, and looks at the empty seat. "Are your eyes not working?" Bella scoffs, "if someone was sitting here you would see them, would you not?" As if to demonstrate she throws a punch at the empty space next to her, "see? No invisible witch servant or anything of the sort, it's safe..."

Mando has posed:
Indeed.  He's even toiling with laundry!  Isn't it awful?  To be stuck on a coach, no a land whale with such peasants?  Only peasants would ride filthy whales.  In this filthy hell, Mando is the peasant knight!  Come to sa-stick his foot in his mouth.

Mando's head tilts to the side with an uneasy smile, not making direct eye contact, "Well.  I mean yes.  I mean I guess I would."  Just had to end on the worst one.  "Okay, maybe don't test that when I," and he sits down after wrangling laundry bin off of someone's foot, well not so much wrangling as them kicking it off as if annoyed by a fly they can't quite locate.

"Hi.  I'm Armando."  Mando follows up, bobbing his head to the inane rhythm of his never ending name, "Armando Felix Diego Miguel Ochoa."  Breath.  "Thanks for letting me sit here."  Then he suddenly asks, as if having been holding it in, his voice lower, "So are you a cosplayer or something? Or do you like industrial music and stuff?"  At least he's pointed in /a/ direction.

Bella has posed:
"You think you can hide yourself from me to a point where such tests would be required? Fool! I see the unseen!" Bella brags, angered at the very thought this peasant would think he could mask himself from her. It's only after an after thought that she realized perhaps saying that, wasn't the very best means to hide her true nature. So after a few seconds she adds, "and I mean of course the normally unseen, such as when a child crawls under the carpet. It is unseen, but seen, see? There's...symantics to it!"

She takes a moment to straighten her cloak, and come to think of it, she is dressed quite goth...was there a convention or comic con or something nearby?

When Armando introduces himself, Bella turns to look at him somewhat aghast. "You think you can introduce yourself to me...without explicit permission!?" There's a clear undertone of vexation to her words, and yet, she's holding herself back from showing any real anger. "I am Bellatrix Lestrange," she introduces herself in turn, and from the manner in which she uttered the name, she's clearly expecting some level of recognition.

When he asks about her being a cosplayer or into industral music, Bella just sets a piercing glower at Mando, and leaves it unanswered, not realizing her very introduction might sway his opinion.

"You can add however many number of names to your stupid name, still, nobody would once suspect you of being a noble. Fool."

Under her breath she mutters, "...still it goes unendingly the torment..."

Mando has posed:
Mando is, well, utterly lost.  "Normally people just call me bendejo.  That's what my uncle calls me," and has since he was a little boy.  Mando grits his teeth into a smile in such poor timing.

"Oookay.  So you're like all," pause, grin, "hardcore, method?  I got it."  Mando nods.  No he doesn't.  The bus is, of course, making a billion little annoying stops.  He seems unruffled by her outrage, and Bella's restraint only seems to reinforce his assumptions, along with her so-called name.

"Oh I get it."  Harry Potter.  That stuff was always happening.  "Harry Potter?  It was okay, but like, you have werewolves and shapeshifters and not a single vampire?"  He scoffs lightly.  "Insanity.  No offense."

Mando can read a room.  "You can blame my parents," he says softly.  Then he falls silent.  He pulls out his 'dumb' smartphone but it's already out of juice, black.  Finally, he stands up, not even needing an announcement or any other signal to know where his stop is.  A part of him wants to ignore the woman he just met and walk away without a word, never to see her again, but another part of him feels compelled to say in a polite tone, "It was nice meeting you Bella," either playing into her delusions, make-believe, well that's all he can muster in the realm of possibilities.  What are the chances that /he/ would come across the thing his heart most desired?  "This is my stop."

Then he begins to move down the aisle, people not moving their knees and such as he tries to bump his way by after not being heard. "Sorry, excuse me," he repeats like a mantra as he moves to the mid-door.  When the bus lurches away from the stop, he yells, "Hey!  This is my stop!" and gets yelled at for not pulling the cable to signal the driver, which he did.  He doesn't protest.

Bella has posed:
"Ah, so which is it, Mando or Bendejo?" Bella looks at Mando impatiently, "I'm not going to call you by a myriad of names, pick just the one!"

"Yes!" Bella is quick to answer this time around when Mando notes she's like all, "I'm just like every other human, very normal, very ordinary, so there's nothing to snoop about for, understand?" When the name of Harry Potter is invoked, Bella arches a brow, looking confusedly at Mando. She ha no clue what he's on about, but werewolves she does know, as she hisses, "beastly abominations...if they were all exterminated it'd be easier for everyone else to not make stupid mistakes!" Then he mentions vampires, and Bella tenses, "what? Who is a vampire? Where!? You should let me know because they are scary and can easily kill normal humans, like me."

But then Mando takes a bold stand, literally standing up, to approach the cursed door of all things! "Are you not afraid of the witch's curse? You can truly make the land boat stop?" Bella inquires, suddenly taking increased interest in Mando, she starts to stand up, and follows from a safe distance behind Mando. Maybe she can let the witches have him, and then she'll be able to escape!

But then the witches prevail again, leading Bella to furiously assert, "if this beastly vessel does not stop for Mando the Bendejo De Matcha, he will be late to his Lord, and a hunt of all witches shall commence!" There, a threat, but the important thing was that this stop is requested on behalf of Mando, and therefore he is the one the witches should target. A clever play by Bella!

Mando has posed:
Mando is used to this.  Even ordering coffee at the Starbucks he works at, his boss can't remember his name and the nickname he thought he earned was mostly at his expense and because his coworkers couldn't remember it either.  He bears this like he did the others.  With a show of mild discomfort hidden behind his congeniality.

"Armando," but parts of the word are swallowed up, /even/ for a vampire.  Isn't that quite odd.  So Mando it is.

Mando squints at the sudden urge from Bella to say she's a human, or speak at all, this all happening in the aforementioned rising now.  But the mention of werewolves, makes Mando look back down at her, rather animated.  "I know!  That's what I say!  I mean I don't actually say it," because he's been down that road before with people, "because no one thinks they exist."  Not him.  The seemingly even smaller man than reality has become completely animated with delight.  "And I personally have never seen one, but still, that doesn't mean, you know," blush, stage whisper, "But I think they do."

He blinks, missing the perfect timing (that only gives him a 50% success rate) to pull the cord for his stop, but perfectly within the window for anyone else in the world.  He looks down at Bella, his brow furrowing.  The Harry Potter Bella he knew would not be afraid of vampires, especially not witches.  "Uh.  Yeah.  I can," but HE DOESN'T TELL HER ABOUT THE VAMPIRE!

The witches murmur behind her, surely curses upon her undead body.  Witches.  Their old wrinkly bodies thirsty for the filthy elixirs they brew from foul sources.  They are after her.  "I hope you die...again."  The words are ominous.  One woman chants a lost tongue as she knits a baby blanket furiously, as iif trying to escape the venom of such confrontations she wanted to avoid by staying back at in the first place, or more likely, fueling the which who competes with the silver haired one for dominance in the coven.  The one who spoke burrows holes into the back of a silver haired dame who doesn't give the crone the time of day.

And Bella is caught in the crosshairs.

"Better get out of here," Mando comments to himself.  He just knows.  Wholly embarrassed by Bella drawing attentiong to him.  "She's just a little excited for our convention tomorrow.  Practicing and all," he explains to no one who bought it.

The bus lurches again as he's getting off and all of the extras spill out everywhere.  He kicks them off as the bus driver shouts and then ends up running over the detergent.

It's a strip mall.  Like any other forgotten one out of the way.  There's even a laundromat to trash things up a little, a liquor store (seriously, in a 'strip mall').  There's also a karaoke booth joint that's rather second rate and a hookah lounge that is open every hour of every day because, of course.

Bella has posed:
"We all heard me say it," Bella snaps at Mando, as if she couldn't fathom why he would repeat what she said, even though she absolutely butchered his name.

She does shake her head at the thought of people thinking werewolves don't exists, "...that must be because people are idiots." There, a valid explanation. She sighs at the mention he never saw one, "well, obviously, you're still alive...it takes years and years of practice before you can match them, let alone terminate them. Why do you think Death Dealers are even necessary...?" It's only after she spoken the words, that Bella realizes she's not doing too well in pretending to be a normal human. Normal humans shouldn't know about Death Dealers at all, why did she feel so at ease with Mando? Hopefully he wasn't paying attention.

While it may not have been the most graceful of exists, with the bus driver chasing them out of the bus, Bella prefers to see it as the lowly human coming to escort them to make sure they successful escape the bewitched door of the stupid vessel.

"Uh huh! Freedom!" Bella announces jovially, very happy to be free of that infernal creation called a 'bus', if she even heard it at all. Still seems like a land boat to her.

She then surveys the surrounding, before turning to Mando and asking, "so as a normal human, what would you do in a place like this? I am only asking to ensure you are neither werewolf nor witch." So clever, Mando wouldn't even realize the information she is gleaning from him!

Mando has posed:
"Yes, of course," Mando says, suppressing a strange look.  He doesn't know if this person is unstable or what.  Most likely.  It wouldn't be the first time Mando made that mistake.  He doesn't say anything of Bella prattling about Death Dealers.  He has no clue what she's talking about and focuses on the task at hand to give an excuse as to why he doesn't add to the conversation.

"Yeah, um."  Yeah being his favorite word right now.  "Well sometimes you go for cheap tacos or other things.  Like that place, you do karaoke."  Just play along with it and maybe nothing bad will happen.  "What do you mean 'as a normal human?'" he stops in their journey of him lugging the laundry to air quote before moving on.

Inside the machines whirl, growl, and buck.  He moves quietly through to find a machine and starts loading it up, not paying attention to whether Bella is still with him.  There is a little area with a pinball machine and a vending machine to keep people busy, plus a posted wifi password.

Bella has posed:
"Ka-ra-okay?" Bella tries to repeat what she just heard, judging by the clueless expression on her face, she hasn't an inkling what Mando was referring to, "is this some kind of secret ritual?" She asks, at least that much keeping with Mando's method cosplayer theory.

"What?" Bella asks as if she had no clue what Mando was referring to, "are there other kind of humans? Of course we're normal, right?" Will this attempt work? She suspects he overheard the term 'Death Dealers' and is now suspicious. Naturally, it hadn't occured to her he could easily mistake Death Dealers to Death Eaters, and still think she's an avid cosplayer into LARPing. Mostly because she doesn't know what either of those are.

Bella observes Mando does the menial task expected of a servant, and then loses interest, starting to look about the room until she finds a slight! Some stupid help left behind the secret password! Whatever does it unlock? Bella has no clue, but she tries to invoke it's power by speaking aloud: "STU DRY CLEANER WIFI GUEST 125799fxd12G!" She speaks each syllable as if casting a mighty spell, and when she's done, she listens carefully while looking around suspiciously, "Mando...do you notice any walls sliding out of place? Secret passages opening in the floor?"

Mando has posed:
"Uh, no.  You know you can drop the act.  I won't tell anyone that you're not dedicated to the cause or standing up for witch rights or whatever you guys play at," Mando says as he starts to get somewhat tired of this cosplayer foisting their act on him as if they've already cast him in some role, assuming this is all at his expense.

"Seriously?" at Bella's continued questions.

When Bella reads out the strange incantation, the guy at the fluff-and-dry station leans through the half-window over the short-counter.  "Seriously?  Now I have to change it again."  Never mind that everyone in that damn place already has it and not that it matters.  But it matters to the crotchety old owner who's been nursing this place for fiftyish years, and it doesn't matter what all these 'kids' tell him.  Technology is not to be trusted.

"No," Mando calls out about the prospect of something triggering from her words, or whatever she's touching.  He has no idea.  He's too busy loading up the washers with a billion things his mom /always/ makes him bring.

Bella has posed:
Bella looks oddly at Mando, but makes no comment when he tells her to drop the act. Whatever it is he believes she's doing, is probably better than him knowing the truth.

Bella hears Mando saying 'seriously?' followed by the guy at the half-window counter repeating the same, and she looks about the room, "why seriously? What is so serious?" It then dawns on her, "you mean the culprit who left the secret password out in the open? Ha! Goes to show how difficult to find proper help is!"

After taking a quick walk about the place, she moves closer to Mando and whispers, "that password was useless, it did absolutely nothing, I think someone left it here as a prank."