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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He shrugged.

"I don't sound like I'm from New Orleans," He said. Everyone thinks we all have Cajun accents and speak Creole. "But that's cool. I'd like to hear about what it was like growing up there. My parents sort of kept a lot of cultural stuff away from me, so I couldn't even tell you where I'm originally from."

He shook his head. Tyrone wasn't sure he agreed with his parents' choices.

_Could most African American people say where they were from, though? That was something (more) that had separated Sunny from other black girls when she'd lived in New York. She was Nigerian American. She had a country. Most of them didn't and would never know._

_"I grew up among black people looking like this," Sunny said in her thickest Nigerian accent, but there was still lightness and even a hint of amusement in her tone. After all, if she couldn't laugh at her hilariously abusive childhood, she might just start screaming. And no one needed that. "You can probably imagine a good chunk of it well enough." Certainly better than most people here could._

_But she switched back smoothly to her American accent when she added, "What kind of cultural stuff?"_

Edited 2018-10-20 04:26 (UTC)

Tyrone wondered briefly how much harder it would be for him to be Sunny where he lived. It was not a pleasant thought.

"Simple things," He said. "Like we moved so we could be around the 'right people'."

He hoped she would understand that meant he moved into a 'white neighborhood'.

"And I only just found out my dad used to be apart of this Mardis Gras tribe called the Wild Red Hawks," He explained. "He still won't really say why he distanced himself from that for so many years, but most of the stuff my parents do is to 'protect me'... I haven't even told them the girl I like back home has a family into voodoo because I'm pretty sure they'd freak right out."

Which sounded not unlike Sasha's parents. Which had led to Sasha acting out to his mostly white and Lamb neighbors.

"Parents do that," Sunny agreed. Being the baby, the only girl, the albino in a highly superstitious culture, her mother had been highly protective of Sunny for years despite the fact that she was objectively the child with the most sense (and the least to be afraid of, but Mama couldn't know that). She was still overprotective, though overseas she couldn't do very much other than fuss over Skype.

God Sunny missed her mother's fussing.

"And in my experience, they don't take things like that well. My mother suspects a lot of things, but even if she could accept the weird, her faith makes it all the more complicated." She pulled out a knife, the handle silver and the blade something like green glass. "You may not have rules not to, but if your gut says don't spill, trust that instinct."

Edited 2018-10-26 06:40 (UTC)

"Wait..." He said, wondering if he picked up on it right. "Do you mean your mom doesn't know you can do magic and stuff?"

Tyrone considered Sunny's apparent age. She was older than him, but he knew nothing more than that. Has she hid this from her for that long?

He eyed the knife. It didn't look like any knife he had ever seen before.

Edited 2018-10-28 02:13 (UTC)

"Not officially, no," Sunny said with a shake of her head, considering her juju knife. She turned it over in her fingers as she spoke. "She suspects, I think. But she doesn't ask because her faith wouldn't suffer having a witch for a daughter, and I don't tell, because I'm not allowed. And over time... she's just decided to trust me anyway."

Even so, she really didn't know what Mama would do if she found out. She had always been her mother's favorite, being the baby, the only girl, and the one most in need of protecting both from the sun and society. But she didn't know what would happen if they just addressed the magic directly.

I wonder if mom will be the same. His mom worked for Roxxon and if he told her it was Roxxon's fault, what would she say?

"I guess... sometimes that's just the way it has to be." He said, not totally feeling that idea. "I know there's no going back to the way things used to be back home. A part of everything that happened, I don't want to."

Sunny gave a gesture that was somewhere between a shrug and a nod. "It is what it is. The odd advantage of being here is that I don't have to hide from anybody. Actually you find out fairly quickly that it's not easy to hide things here. We give each other all the space we can, but in a small living space with little to do that you don't find for yourself... you wind up watching people. And they watch back." Which wasn't exactly new for any person of color who'd lived in America, only it had a completely different feeling to it.

"I'll have to figure out if that's comforting or not," He replied with a sly grin. "But it might be nice not to have to hide for a while... until there's a way home at least."

"Truth," Sunny agreed. Even if the idea of going home only got more complicated all the time. Not that she wouldn't leap at the opportunity, but now that she'd made connections and friends here the break would not be as clean. Now it would hurt and bleed. "And hey, maybe you'll be the one to figure it out, we still don't know."

"Yeah, maybe." He said.

Tyrone wasn't sure he was capable of something that seemed so hard, but he would definitely try. He thought maybe he could do it if Tandy was around. They seemed to be stronger when they were together.

"I should get going." He said. "I didn't actually take the time to settle into the room. I was kind of hoping this would be temporary, but I know it's not now."

Sunny nodded. "I recommend finding a project as soon as you're able. Rooms like ours are meant to be avoided for as much of the day as possible."

"A project," He repeated with a nod.

Tyrone wasn't sure what sort of project he could take on. He supposed he could try to recreate the hood his brother had been putting beads on for Mardis Gras. If he could find the materials, Tyrone thought he probably would.

"I guess I'll see you around," He said with a short smile.

He nodded one last time to Sunny and then he walked toward the exit of the library.

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