strangetrip | [EP] each has been sent as a guide

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[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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That did raise a small snarl from her. Regina didn't have her mother's issues with being lowborn, but she'd been Queen long enough not to appreciate the implication--even though she was learning it meant far less and much more than she'd ever credited.

It was only a small curl of her lip in the end, a small flash in her eyes. "I know about crop management from running an agricultural co-op in the last prison world." And for a very long time, an apple tree had been her only solace. Plants were less complicated than people.

He had cause to be surprised several times over, at that - from the way he'd seemed to somehow offend her with what he'd thought was a reasonable question, to the mention of the last prison world.

"You're from that similar place that came before?" Several of the others had mentioned it. "Gotham, was it?"

"For the last several years, yes," Regina answered a little stiffly, but let out a breath and forced herself to let go of the anger. It worked better than most people would expect.

"It wasn't much like this, except that we arrived without warning and couldn't leave."

"That seems so cruel," Vax called it, though he'd had his initial shock of it already. "To be taken from your home unawares more than once over."

He glanced back at her from where he'd been eyeing the meadow. "Did you ever find anything to say what had done all of that in Gotham?" It was hard enough, to be forced to start in a new world with nothing, with no one... And for as fiercely glad as he was to have Percy jailed with him, at least, Vax could scarce imagine being expected to do this all over again in some short years.

At least three times over, even though she'd been responsible for it more than once. Regina sighed. "No. But it wasn't always cruel. For some, it offered a second chance." As it had been for her and Robin. "Coming here wasn't cruel. It reunited me with my daughter."

Vax wasn't yet ready to accept that any place determined to keep him from Vox Machina - and his sister, above all - would constitute as benign. But he took her meaning for what it was, turning to face her more fully with this last revelation. "You have a daughter here? Might I have met her already?"

"You may have." Hair as black as coal, lips as red as blood....the fairest. Regina smiled at the thought. In spite of everything, Regina loved that they shared their story. "Snow White? Not much of a talker, but she works in the stables."

He'd observed a few people coming and going from the stables, and though he'd not spoken with the workers there as of yet, he thought he might know the girl she meant. Wary-eyed, armed, and quiet indeed.

"I haven't quite met everyone here - they seem to keep trickling in," Vax said by way of excuse. "But so much the better for morale, if some of us have got family to look after."

"I'm one of the most recent," Regina replied by way of agreement and rather than exposing Snow. Privacy came hard when your life was a fairy tale; Snow's was sacrosanct.

"If this is anything like Gotham, most of us will have family or important friends before long." Some had used that as a factor in their explanations, those who felt it what was a natural event. They'd thought it had something to do with an attractive force across the universes.

Vax thought on that quietly for a moment, plucking a few strands of long grass. "I do," he admitted. "Have a friend here, from my own world I mean. He wasn't the person I would have expected, but I'm glad all the same."

"Expected. Now you sound like..." A Charming? Even though he probably wouldn't have recognized it, she didn't bandy those names about too near to Snow White. "One of my family." Emma had insisted they were family and Regina had finally given in to stop the harangue. "Whenever they have to separate for more than an hour, they remind each other 'I will always find you'."

"I hope I'm not as bad as all that," he started a smile. Though he did still hold out hope for the others. For Vex'ahlia. "You don't sound as if they're your favorite family."

"They're Charming enough," Regina replied, amusing herself. "It's family I'm not particularly fond of." Really only her mother and sister, since the detent with the Charmings had warmed to something friendlier.

Vax'ildan got the sense that Regina didn't show her cards until she was good and ready. People with family troubles tended to go one way or the other - either they were eager to tell you about every irritation their family had caused them, or they would rather not be forced to explain. The way she doubled her words back on themselves without stopping to explain, he thought she might be more of the latter.

"Say, I don't know anything about farming," he changed the subject, "but I've got two hands and loads of time for them to be idle just now. I could at least be a dogsbody." Until he got bored of it, anyway. He didn't do well when he was bored. It just so happened that this was all new to him, for one, and that the options for entertainment were limited, for another.

Regina made a point of sizing him up when he made the offer. It was unusual, a pretty man like this one, offering to work with his hands, especially since he didn't look particularly built for the work. Still, she wasn't rolling in farm-workers, and she liked him well enough so far.

"I'm sure I can find something for you to do." Where and what depended on a few significant details. "Do you come from a world with or without magic?"

His dark brows rose a bit. "With," he began, taking it as a sign that her world probably had magic in it too. People who hadn't seen it firsthand weren't as likely to believe in it, after all. "Not my specialty though. I'm more of a sneak or a scout by trade."

That, Regina filed away for useful information. At some point, she would almost certainly require someone with those skills for something. Even heroes needed to gather intelligence.

She brushed her hand over the grass between them and in the wake of her passage, with no external evidence of magic, it grew almost an inch. A clover flower that had been a bud blossomed. "Is that a problem for you?"

It did pose him a problem, of a sort. But not one that would keep him from wanting to help her. It was more a pang of longing that clutched his heart in his chest, wistfulness a fine sheen in his eyes where he studied the clover blossom.

He didn't ask if she was a druid, the way he'd done Joanna. That seemed so naive, in this place.

"I've... Seen such gifts before," Vax made to explain after a beat, a touch of something both rough and soft in his quiet tone. "No. It's no problem by me."

Of course she noticed the affect on him, but Regina had long since got out of the habit of asking questions that people might answer and she'd be forced to pretend she cared. If things had changed, and she had remembered that she did care, she still didn't ask. Already the weight of his loss pressed in like a heavy morning fog.

Besides, her magic was no gift. All magic comes with a price, dearie. If it was a gift for someone, they'd be like Miss Swan. Which hurt on so many levels.

Instead, she ducked her head away from the emotion in his voice, the hauteur stripped down to simple honesty. "I'll need help with the crops. I'd prefer it be someone who won't be disturbed by how often they've grown."

Vax took a moment to steady himself, aware at least objectively of how ridiculous and awkward he may seem. It wasn't her magic that had unsettled him, of course, and he didn't want her to have that impression of him.

"My feathers don't ruffle quite that easily," he reassured her, something more wry gradually replacing the melancholy.

Regina offered a small nod and lip-curve (not nearly enough of a curve to be called a smile) of Queenly approval. "There may be work between, wedding and planting. I'll give you a portion of each harvest for pay." And he could do whatever he wished with it, whether eat, gift, or sell. For her part, she planned to trade, pickle, jar and store.

"I don't need any of that," he told her honestly, running the fingers of one black-gloved hand through the tendrils of newly risen grass. "Put it into the group stores, if you're particular about it. We've all been able to eat here, free of charge or labor. I might need repayment, some day, if things should change? But for now I'd be content to keep myself occupied, and if I can do us all a favor at the same time, it will at least have been time well spent."

"As you like." Regina would simply keep an accounting, should he ever have need of pay. "I aim to begin planting next week. How will I find you?"

"Room 204," he told her, picking himself up off of the grass. It sounded like the conclusion of a business transaction, somehow. Regina Mills just seemed like one of those people that didn't do much small talk. "What're we growing, anyway?"

"Apples, corn, potatoes, tomatoes, zucchini, cucumbers, lettuce, citrus, berries, beans, carrots, turnips, radishes, and some kind of grain. Herbs and spices as a secondary, and possibly a patch of prickly pear for the fruit and spines, barrel cactus for the moisture storage," Regina rattled off. "We'll probably add banana and coconut, later, in a different location." She shrugged off the memory of fields she'd destroyed. "If there's something you'd particularly like to add, let me know. I'm experimenting, since some varietals may be too finicky for magical enhancement."

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