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[color=8882be]"Oh, shit...what haven't I been on?"[/color] Lauren asked rhetorically. The grifter lifted up her nose to the crisp evening breeze in thought. [color=8882be]"There was a while where it felt like I was running the planet for a while, between Atlas and Mistral. Always drinking something new and fancy off stolen car money. But that wasn't really real. I never actually [i]owned[/i] a car, like, bought one with my own money before. I spent it all on a hotel, or a place to stay for a while, or drinks."[/color]

She bit down on her lip.

[color=8882be]"Weirdest thing I've ever had to drink was seawater,"[/color] she explained. [color=8882be]"The first time my dumb ass got to Mistral, it got there by stealing a little charter boat. For four days, all I lived off of was beef jerky, High Life, and marlin I caught with my bare hands. [i]Marlin.[/i] You know what a marlin is, Cap?"
[/color]

[color=0054a6]"Babe...marlin are actually pretty comm--"[/color]

[color=8882be]"I thought that gross motherfucker was a baby swordfish,"[/color] Lauren continued, barreling right over the objections of her team leader. [color=8882be]"Black people don't trust that open water shit, babe. It was a whole new world. So anyway, after I got tired of three days of drinking shitty beer, I decided to drink from the seawater. I thought it was gonna be safe, since it comes from Mother Gaia and all, but noooo-oooooo-ooooooo. Hell, no. I was sick until I got to Mistral. I even had to crack open the ship's supply of bottled water--" and here, the interruption this time came from Ben's surprised sputtering "--well, I didn't wanna open it! Because Pops always said the Atlesians were fugazi as fuck for selling us something as vitally important as water. Said there was all sorts of chemicals in the water they sold, and you know what? They were right! That's probably what turned me gay!"[/color]

...

The Huntress' cute mouth scrunched up in a thoughtful pout, then relaxed with a sigh.

[color=8882be]"Nah, that ain't what turned me gay."[/color]

Ben wasn't say anything. He must have been waiting for her to finish her story. [color=8882be][i]That's my Cap![/i][/color]

As they settled into line (holy shit, what a line!) at Junior's, Lauren was still talking about her past experiences in the other kingdoms.

[color=8882be]"They do shit kinda funny in those parts of Mistral. One time I was at a club and this cute bartender, total fucking honey, tells me that on Thursdays her special is sex on the beach. And I'm thinking, fuck yeah, I want some sex on the beach. Turns out it's just a cocktail. But I didn't grow up in Zephyr, I grew up in some shithole neighborhood in--"[/color] and here a sports car tore down the street adjacent to Ben and Lauren's sidewalk jaunt, drowning out her next few words [color=8882be]"--so I grew up kinda stupid about those fancy cocktails and shit. Specially when you're sixteen or seventeen."[/color]

She shrugged and checked the (glacial) moving progress of the line at the club before she turned back to Ben.

[color=8882be]"Specially 'cause one time, in [i]Atlas,[/i] I drank this crazy ass rich dude gin and chased it with this cheap-ass bottle of Simply Lemonade, and I ended up waking up inside a mechanical bull with [i]all[/i] my clothes on. So I guess I must have been hiding from the Bratva or something. And I guess it worked, because the Bratva didn't find me, and I was too hungover to find a way out until, like, nearly dinner time. It was pretty hype!"[/color]

...

Suddenly, and a bit manically, a bit of the energy ebbed away from Lauren Negasi.

[color=8882be]"I don't know how many stories like that I'm gonna get to tell about my time here. All they teach at Beacon is reinforcement of my Advanced Hatred for the White Devil degree."[/color]