<hr/><div class="floatleft">(http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt357/Niferbelle/my%20avatars/doomtown7av_zps641b8122.jpg)</div><br/><strong>Name:</strong>Lilah 'Li-Li' Oliver (https://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=200832.msg9813377#msg9813377)<br/><strong>Faction:</strong>There have been a few rumors but who listens to those<br/><strong>Date:</strong>May 11, 1876<br/><strong>Time of Day:</strong>Afternoon<br/><strong>Location:</strong>Babel's Tower<br/><strong>Tagged:</strong>Reid, open<br/><hr/>It wasn't often that Lilah was dumbstruck. She was quiet most of the time but that was mainly because she liked it that way and didn't have much to say to most people not because she was stymied finding words. She was scrutinizing Reid so hard that she nearly missed it when they came around with the food though luckily she came to her senses just in time to get a share. Nobody had ever called her beautiful before, not her mish-mash of white and Chinese that marked her as an outsider on either side. What was it that maze rat had called her?<em>Ziujiao</em>. Banana. Oh, Jack had told her she was pretty before but that was like how a brother would tell his little sister she was pretty even if she were homely as dirt, you couldn't put much stock in it. She gave him a little smile and shook her head as if to say she didn't mind he said so and just hoped she wasn't blushing like a ninny.<br/><br/>"Well, I don't know if that's the way of it," she said to his suggestion why she was being labeled a whore all the time. He was going to think she didn't talk about anything else! "I always reckoned that most men see women one of two ways -- family, your mothers and sisters and wives and potential wives, and whores. And since I obviously ain't nobody's family..." She shrugged. "Anyway, awhile back I found out if I did turn whore I'd do all right for myself on account of I have good teeth. But I'd die before I'd do that, no offense to the girls who had to take it up."<br/><br/>She tucked into dinner, glad the conversation was shifting, listening with interest as he talked about his brother. He didn't make family life sound all that blissful though but it wasn't any surprise to her that he was still looking after a brother that sounded no-account and not cutting him loose. Reid was that nice a guy. "Most folks come out here to mine and have no idea the hard labor and right-terrible conditions waiting for 'em. Then you have to worry about everybody wanting a piece of you or what you got, and it ain't much of a way to make a living," she commiserated. "I ain't got any brothers and sisters but I imagine it must be a hard burden sometimes."<br/><br/>She sopped up a bit of the beans with her cornbread and had to admit it was right tasty. She waved off his concern. "Thank ye. I hope you find somethin' soon too. And I ain't gonna begrudge you gettin' a job, whether I was puttin' in for it or not."<br/><br/>She stopped demolishing the food on her plate long enough to answer his question. "Well, I grew up here, actually, so I know Gomorra. But like I said, I've kind of been in and out the past few years so yeah, this is the first time in awhile I've been back to stay. There's an old Chinese woman who stuck a cot in her shed and is rentin' to me. It ain't much but it sure is cheap, I can't complain about that."<br/><br/>She went back to her food and they ate for a few moments in companionable silence. She didn't want him to think all she could talk about was whores and miners so she put some thought into another subject. "Hey, did you hear that about an hour south of here, some brainy types from out east are diggin' up the bones of some great beast out on the mesa? I'd like to see that but I hear they're charging people to look. That's Gomorra for you. I can't quite bring myself to pay somebody for a look. Some fella even said it was the bones of a dragon, mebbe."<br/>