WHO: Ron Weasley & Bellamy Blake. WHAT: Random meeting/Matchup. WHEN: Tuesday afternoon. WHERE: Weasley's Wizard Wheezes. WARNINGS: Mentions of death. STATUS: Closed/Matchup/Complete.
Bellamy had roamed half the town, as it was. Tonight, however, he'd needed to get out of the house. More to let his sister and Jake have a night alone together. Which reminded him that he'd have to contact Jaq, see how she was holding up. Madison Valley wasn't for everyone and he knew that.
He's about to head further down the street when the shop catches his attention. The name alone screamed joke shop, but he wouldn't really know. Before showing up in this place nothing like this existed. Hell, there was a lot that hadn't existed. Shops. Teas. Cakes. Pies. Now this. Which is why it caught his attention the way that it had. Madison Valley continued to amaze him.
He didn't, however, expect the atmosphere of the place when he walks in. Whether it was a good idea or not was a whole other story.
Ron was glad Valentine's Day was over. Usually he was able to ignore it since he had no one to celebrate it with. Except this year, he thought he'd fallen in love with Ruby. Which was fine and all. He did like her and enjoyed her company. But he wasn't in love with her. Luckily, things were back to normal. For the time being, at least.
He was busy putting some new products on the shelves when he heard the bell on the door ring, signalling that a potential customer had entered. He headed over. "Hey, welcome," he greeted. "Can I help you with anything?"
All the Valentine's Day stuff had gone way over his head. That wasn't something that was for him. Though, he had to admit that it wasn't too bad. Well, the candy wasn't. Everyone admitting their love or falling head over heels for someone was a whole other story. This place had a mind of its own and he still wasn't sure how to feel about that.
When Ron's voice cuts through his thoughts, he shakes his head," Right now? Just looking. First time being in a place like this." After all, they didn't have magic or anything like that where he was from.
"Is it?" Ron wasn't surprised. There were a lot of people who came here who'd never been in a magical joke shop. It was actually more rare to find someone who knew exactly what they were looking for.
"I'm guessing you aren't really used to magic?" The guy didn't seem brand new, but Ron could tell he had been in town for awhile. Maybe not as long as he had, but definitely more than a week or even a month.
"It is."
Being inside of a shop period was new to Bellamy. Not just a magical joke shop, but a shop in general. The Earth that he'd came from had been taken out by radiation. So, it wasn't like anything had really survived.
"Magic didn't actually exist where I'm from," he states with a bit of a frown. "A lot of things that this town has didn't exist, actually."
"Oh. Magic is pretty much the main part of where I'm from," Ron told him as he fixed some of the products on the shelf that had gone a bit askew. "I mean, we have Muggle things and all that, but we don't use them. Uh, Muggle means non-magic, by the way," he added since he figured the guy probably didn't know what that meant.
"What sort of world are you from?"
That seemed a bit strange, interesting, but strange. That magic would be the main focal point for a place. He does, however, watch the other start re-arranging things within the shop. The mention of a muggle confuses him, at first, until the other explains it. So, there were magic users and muggles. Weird, but not too unbelievable.
"Where Earth was uninhabitable due to radiation," he states simply.
Ron continued fixing things, but it was obvious he was still listening and paying attention to the conversation. He wouldn't say he was good at multitasking, but he was good at handling two things at once at least.
"Can't say I know much about radiation." Sure, it existed and all. But it wasn't really something he or anyone he knew really had any experience with. "So if you couldn't live on Earth, where did you live?"
"Trust me, you don't want to know about it."
Or, if he did want to know then it would be to avoid it. That? It was something that Bellamy could do. Provide information in order to keep people safe. No one needed to be eaten alive, boiled alive or whatever it was that the radiation decided to do to a person. He remembered what it had done to Atom, he didn't want to see that done to anyone else.
"We grew up on the Ark. Born and raised on a space station until the adults became a bunch of idiots and sent 100 kids to the ground," he states. Actually, 101 since he hadn't meant to be on the dropship. "The place was failing, and since us kids were delinquents, they decided to send a dropship full of us down to see if Earth was finally habitable or not."
"Well, I am curious," Ron said. "Is it that bad?" Though even if it was horrible, part of him still wanted to know. If it was bad, at least there wasn't any need to worry about it. As far as Ron knew, there'd been no reports or stories about radiation in Madison Valley.
He didn't really know what a space station was. The only ones he knew of were from those Star Wars movies and he wondered if it was something similar. He did shake his head at what the adults did, though. "That's a pretty messed up thing they did, sending kids down there." It didn't matter if they were bad, they were still children.
Of course the younger man was curious. Why wouldn't he be? Most people were curious about things that had never happened to them. "Radiation is bad news. That stuff hits your skin and it'll practically burn you alive, not in flames, but it'll burn you alive from the inside out. Then it'll kill you." He almost wondered if this place could supply nightblood for them. Honestly, he didn't think so, but anything was possible.
"It's one thing to know if the ground was survivable or not, but they didn't know. They might as well of sent us down to die. Some of us did, but quite a few of us lived," he states with a shrug.
Ron's eyes went wide as the guy explained to him what radiation was and how dangerous it is. "Blimey, that sounds horrible. I'm glad there's none of that here." It didn't seem like they'd have to worry about it either. Sure, the Dome liked messing with them, but it never did anything sinister like spread radiation all over town.
"I'm glad most of you lived, though I'm sorry about the ones that didn't."
"Trust me, it's horrible." After what he'd seen it do to Atom. The way that Clarke had mercy killed the kid. There was a lot that had happened as they tried to stay alive on the ground. Luckily, some of them had survived. Others weren't so lucky. Whether due to radiation or to the grounders. Far too much had happened.
"Thanks. You mind if I look around? I don't want to get in your way or re-supply."
Ron had been through war and seen death of people both close to him and not. But it didn't matter, death made him upset whether he knew them or not.
He didn't want to think about it, so he was glad the guy dropped the subject for the time being. "No, not at all. Go right ahead. Just let me know if you need anything."