st_oriedqueen: (hmmm chinhand)
Regina Mills ([personal profile] st_oriedqueen) wrote in [community profile] strangetrip2017-03-22 10:25 am

[EP] each has been sent as a guide

Even for a witch, keeping track of inventory in a inn that magically resupplied itself on no definable schema, planning for non-magical and magical shortages and disasters, was only about 10% magic and 90% paperwork. For a witch putting the inhabitants of that inn before herself as penance for past evils and in place of her actual victims, it was 100% soul-searing. Especially because of her self-imposed restrictions on telling people what she'd been doing (they had to notice, because if she spoke through actions she wasn't being boastful or attention-seeking), it was also 100% isolating, lonely, and tedious.

Still, Regina persevered, today working on the health and healing aspects of her pencil-and-paper draft of a crisis management plan. The problem, of course, was that while she'd heard rumors of magical healing, no one had exactly jumped up and proclaimed their expertise in that area, and the few people with practical experience had more field medicine and triage. The only real light in that plague-threatened darkness was Henry's medicinal herb garden.

As morning passed into afternoon, Regina stood, stretched, reversing the bow in her back and then stowed her glasses in the drawer of the desk in the officer she'd appropriated in the otherwise unoccupied back office suite behind the front desk. In need of a break, she passed through the front desk area, told the Innkeeper (who scanned magically as human but never had anything useful to say) she still had the towels he'd given her before (which she did, in the beach bag she'd acquired from the shops), and headed out to explore the best locations on the grounds for fruit orchards and what, if any, structures she could appropriate or manipulate to greenhouse them so the magic wouldn't be as obvious.

High sun found her in the Madonna Meadows across the street from the registration and cafe building where she sat on the clean towels the Innkeeper had given her and made planning sketches. It had the advantage of plenty of room, even if it didn't have the 23 acres the hotel brochures claimed (some of the acreage had been lost to scrub desert by whatever planar shift magic had brought the Inn here. As she surveyed it she decided it would do for bulk growth, but in the event of another plane shift might be lost.

After 2:30, and lunch of a chicken Caesar salad, an apple, and cranberry-soda with a wedge of lime, she packed up her bag again and struck out again. This time she went to the "Secret Garden," and began investigating surrounding structures. When she found a useful tool-and-tractor shed, she rolled up the sleeves on her blazer and blouse, then began clearing the apparently unused materials from the shed. She did most of it using her physical strength (penance), but in the case of heavy objects or the tractor without the keys, she permitted herself magic instead.

[ooc: Find Regina anywhere she is in the post. She's not being showy with her magic, but if you're gifted, you'd probably notice. In the last location, she's uncharacteristically sweat-shiny and her hair's a bit of a mess, because she's not using magic to maintain her untouched glamor. I promise no fireballs unless previously agreed upon.]
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[personal profile] st_arknaked 2017-03-27 06:12 pm (UTC)(link)
"I didn't expect that you would," he shifted a few metal crates and made his way to what looked like a work bench. Rifling in the top drawer he found a box of nails, and in another a hammer.

"You using that pallet for anything or just moving it for fun?" You know, the one she was floating around when he'd walked up.
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[personal profile] st_arknaked 2017-03-28 01:06 am (UTC)(link)
"You threw me across a room, dropping a pallet on me would barely register." He accepted her reasoning for keeping the pallet and moved deeper into the shadows and came up with a couple two by fours and then from against the wall a strip of plywood.

"These will do."
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[personal profile] st_arknaked 2017-03-28 02:19 am (UTC)(link)
"I growled, I didn't touch her. Besides which the kid looked more than capable of defending herself." Not that it had been needed.
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[personal profile] st_arknaked 2017-03-28 04:26 pm (UTC)(link)
"Perhaps not," he considered that, he'd never really wanted children. He was a warrior, a fighter, he was probably lucky to have lived this long.

"I had brothers," he said finally, his voice low and heavy with some emotion he didn't want to dig into too deeply. "I had family. So I do understand. But if you protect those you love from everything, how will they learn to protect themselves?"

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[personal profile] st_arknaked 2017-03-28 09:19 pm (UTC)(link)
"She looked more fierce than afraid," but thinking back he could see it now, that flicker in the girls eyes.
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[personal profile] st_arknaked 2017-03-29 03:02 am (UTC)(link)
"SOmetimes," he agreed. "In some places."

It was something he and the girl would have in common.