In all her years as a head thief Collector, the Collector had never met another body quite like this. Most bodies wandered off into the wilderness never to be seen or heard from again when they lost their head, roughly 80% of them if the Collector had to guess. About 15% would become non-sentient drones that the nearby cities had taken upon themselves to shelter and provide for, like the Collector had pretended to be to make her way safely around town. That left a 5% minority of victims collection inductees that retained a connection to their body, their separated body parts still reacting and responding as though they were whole. That minority always annoyed the Collector, as those heads required a LOT of upkeep since the magic did nothing more than create a portal between the pieces. The heads still required food, water, oxygen, regular grooming, and aged at the normal human rate. The Collector would often only keep those outlier heads for short periods, then either sedating them and returning them to their owners while they were knocked out, or letting them think they escaped all on their own. It was too much trouble to keep them most of the time, and it depressed the Collector if/when those heads started to grow too old.
This, however, was almost entirely new to the Collector. A fully independent body that had no need of a head. The only other example the Collector could think of was herself, and the Collector's head and body had separated so long ago that neither could remember exactly how they had done it. The Collector had to know more!
"That sounds lovely." The Collector typed into her phone's text to speech, the robotic female voice showing none of the excitement the Collector felt.
Apparently her body language did plenty of talking, as the next thing the independent body typed into her phone was "Haha, I thought you'd like that. Come on, my room is pretty close by."
The independent body hit the button for the sixth floor and the elevator started up again, the two headless bodies not bothering to type during the short voyage upwards. When the elevator reached the sixth floor, the Collector was surprised to feel a long set of feminine fingers wrapping firmly but not forcefully around her own, the independent body taking her hand and guiding her to the appropriate room. Inserting her key into the door of room 609, the Collector was all but flung into the room by a body that seemed just as excited as she was.
It was a small and modestly decorated apartment which opened up into a living room composed of a small cheap sofa with a blanket and pillow thrown across it to make it double as a bed, a small cheap TV on a small cheap desk, and a cheap desk and chair tucked into the corner. The only thing of value in the room seemed to be the computer and monitor stacked on top of the desk, a massive but sleek black brick of a machine that stood like the monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey. Off to the left was a small bathroom with a door opened just wide enough for the Collector to see a shelf completely devoid of any beauty products besides soap and scented lotion, no makeup or shampoo or anything pertaining to the head and face. To the right was a small kitchen devoid of... everything a kitchen should have. The shelves were stacked with paperwork and files instead of cutlery, the stove was full of movies and DVD's and obviously hadn't been turned on since the body had arrived, and in place of a refrigerator there was a large bookshelf crammed with textbooks, mostly self help books and books on forensic investigation.
"So, about that drink." The Collector typed, seeing nothing but a tap and no cups to put the water in even if she wanted some. In her excitement, she had completely overlooked the absurdity of a headless body asking another headless body to join her for a drink.
The independent body froze, then slapped its palm against its neck stump, its closest approximation to a facepalm. It typed rapidly and replied "Ugh, sorry! That was really stupid. I was nervous and just blurted out the first thing that came to mind. It's not often I have company, ESPECIALLY company sharing my condition."
The Collector dismissively waved her hand. "No worries, I'm pretty excited too. So, why don't we start with names. I'm Suzanne. What's yours?" She typed, picking the first name that came to mind.
"I'm Duel. Hanna Duel." Hanna Duel responded/
It was lucky the Collector wasn't wearing a head, as if she were she probably would've burst out laughing at that. Not just at the weird James Bond style introduction, but also "Hanna Duel? Like Dullahan? Wow, you parents must've been psychics or time travelers or something."
"Well, I thought it was fitting." Hanna said, one hand crossing her stomach in embarrassment. "Truth is, I don't know my REAL name. I just woke up one day in the middle of the woods, naked and without a head. I had no memory of who I was or how I wound up in that state, but after wandering around for a while I stumbled into this town. They thought I was just another drone at first, but that theory was quickly disproved when I refused to follow orders and gave one overly handsy gentleman a piece of my mind. And a bit of my shin." She explained, pantomiming a crotch level knee jerk to drive her point home.
"Serves him right." The Collector typed, twitching her neck in a head shake. She knew that not everyone in town showed the bodies the same level of respect, and many came home missing some clothing or didn't come home at all. Before the Collector could realize the hypocrisy of her anger, what with her being a kidnapper who done plenty of things against the heads' wills, she typed "So you had no idea who you were, and I assume no one in town recognized you either?"
"Well, a lot of them thought I was the witch!" She typed, using the most common name for The Collector and the one she hated most. "Since I could think, didn't have a head, and apparently had a similar figure to her, they accused me of being the witch and trying to pull some sort of trick on them. They threw me in jail and interrogated me for months, and my case wasn't helped by the fact that they couldn't identify any of my fingerprints, had no record of my DNA, and no one's head had gone missing for nearly a year when they had found me."
"A year?" The Collector typed. She couldn't recall the last time she HAD gone a year without stealing a head. She usually took one head every month, two if she found a REALLY nice pair. She'd had a dry spell every now and then, usually when she stole someone a bit too high profile and had to lay low for the heat to die down, but a year? "When DID they find you?"
"Between 82 and 84. I kind of last track of time in jail." She typed. "Anyway, when another body turned up without a head, they realized that I really was innocent and they let me go. A lawyer got me a fat cash settlement for emotional damages, and I set myself up in the city. I went to school, became a police detective, and now I'm hoping to one day nab the witch and get some answers. And my head, obviously."
"Obviously." The Collector typed. She was at a loss. Even if she wanted to give Hanna answers, she couldn't. She had a good memory for faces, but all bodies kind of looked alike to her. Especially Hanna's since, as she pointed out in her story, it LITERALLY looked just like herself, apart from being a bit taller, a little more muscular, and with a slightly smaller breasts. The Collector had plenty of heads that matched this body's skin tone, but she couldn't remember taking any of them in the early eighties. Like Hanna had said, she was pretty inactive at that time (though, not ENTIRELY off the radar like Hanna had said. She distinctly recalled picking up a butch drifter named Caitlin and a teenage runaway named Sam during those years, and was pretty sure there were one or two heads she was forgetting). Despite coming here for answers, The Collector now had more questions than she'd started with. "So, what now?" She asked, unable to figure out which burning question she wanted to ask first and hoping for some direction.
"Now?" Hanna typed.
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