"Finally," Ann Wales mumbled to herself, quickly reaching into her mouth and extracting the two thin crescent shapes of white acrylic that made her thirty-two teeth look like forty. She also peeled the blue felt dots from the corners of her mouth (used for tracking the digital mouth-widening effects) and handed these objects to the waiting prosthetics artist.

"Four months," she grumbled to herself, heading for the craft services area to grab a snack. "Four months and you'll be out of here, no problem, says my agent. You're playing a female OC with a silly name and no magic powers who doesn't put out – of COURSE the director will off you as soon as she can!"

She grabbed an (unbuttered) English muffin and a cup of coffee, and slipped out through the side door to sit on a discarded chair and watch the sun set over the lot. Her plastic plantsuit was pinching, as always, and she yanked the Velcro loose under both arms to let in some airflow.

"But no," she continued, grumbling to nothing. "Now the filming's been extended – two years! Maybe more! And the script doctor keeps throwing me at people at random, but it never sticks..."

A bright-eyed sparrow came chirping to her foot; she smiled and dropped a scrap of muffin, and watched as the bird snatched it up eagerly and went flying away.

"Well, it's a living."