strangetrip | [EP/GP] Check-In: I Assure You We Are Open

The damp, cool, chilly morning clouded with fog seemed to fit the mood about the Madonna Inn. Nobody had been quite right since the undead invasion. Definitely not Vax'ildan. But for him, it was less about their sense of day-to-day calm and safety shattered, less about undead specifically. It was a lot more to do with losing Scanlan and Pike, and the new memorials installed in the Temple.

He wondered about it, not for the first time, even as he readied for the fresh arrivals that might be coming today - or not, because they didn't always. What decided who came and went? Was there any sense in how many and when or why? Not so far as he could tell, but he'd never been the brains.

Gathering up the great heap of cloth and rope in his arms, the lean figure summoned the wings of his armor, the black of his silhouette merging with the other dark and shifting shapes skulking about in the first light of dawn. With a crouch and a lunge from the roof, he spread his wings wide and circled through the air right up to the face of the main building, unfurling the massive banner he'd sewn of spare bedsheets and painted with dark dye to tie it up taut:

WELCOME NEWCOMERS
YES, THIS MEANS YOU
NO REALLY WE'RE SURE

Life kept going on around you, no matter how confused or scared or fucked-up you were. And the best thing, the kindest thing, the sanest thing he could think to do in all this was to start up the coffee machine, stack some decorated pumpkin-shaped cookies on a platter in the lobby, and prop open the doors for whoever would join them in being confused and scared and fucked-up today.

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"I heard someone of them." Kitty finally let go of Lara's hair, but only to pull the jade pendant out from beneath the neck of her shirt. "It arrived this Easter with some of your journals and a bone arrowhead." That she hadn't taken it off since, that she'd listened to the journals repeatedly, that she studied the arrowhead and everything she could learn about it here, it seemed obvious, but she'd tell her later. "I like that never letting go part."

Lara smiled and shifted just enough to lightly touch the pendant. Putting it in the box with her recordings had been a whim. She'd gotten into the habit of addressing her journals to Kitty, mostly because she couldn't talk about the Inn or Kitty with anyone else. Not even Jonah. The necklace and the arrowhead had felt like a message in a bottle.

She'd never imagined that it would work. "I'm glad, it's not negotiable. You would have heard some of Siberia, then, I think?" Not Mexico, not yet.

"Yes. Siberia." Kitty already didn't care about the journals again, because Lara was standing here in front of her and keepsakes were for absent friends, not present ones. Except the pendant. She hooked her fingers around the cord and went to lift it--"I know this was a gift from your dad. Do you want it back?"

Then she leaned past her own hands to kiss Lara again because she could. "And also while I'm thinking about it, do you need food or anything? Because otherwise, let's get out of here."

"No, you keep it. I left it for you." Without imagining it would actually get to Kitty, but... it had, and it was unspeakably warming that Kitty had almost certainly (knowing her) worn it constantly since she'd received it. As long as she had Kitty, now, she'd still have the necklace.

Lara thought her father would have approved of the sentiment.

For a few seconds all of Lara's attention was taken up again by kissing Kitty, but eventually she came up with, "No, I'm fine for now. Let's get out of here." Here had an audience, and they probably wanted privacy.

Although she didn't say anything about it, Kitty did press a kiss to the pendant before she tucked it back into the neck of her shirt. She'd been doing that so long now, it was a reflex, and when she realized what she'd done, she sneaked a guilty glance at Lara and then just laughed.

She reached out to take Lara's hand and asked, "Your new room, or mine? Darryl or someone finally let me move."

Lara just grinned; every little thing that said yes, Kitty missed her was a little pleasure - more so since neither of them had to miss any more. "I'm in Traveler's Suite this time," she said. "I think that's one that'll have a ghost. So, yours? Until I've got an idea of what sort of spectral bunkmate I've got anyway."

"Yeah, Traveler's has a ghost," Kitty agreed, as much for something to say as anything. Seeing Lara grin was such a joy that it made it a little hard to think and even breath.

She tugged on her friend's...girlfriend's... on Lara's hand and started walking. "I'm in Just Heaven now. It's pretty nice, and the neighbors are awesome."

[EP/GP] Check-In: I Assure You We Are Open

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