Check-In Day: Around the Inn

[st_oriedqueen]

Finished with self-imposed paperwork and emergency planning for the week, Regina permitted herself a leisurely ride on this absolutely gorgeous spring day. After a good gallop, Grace was content to walk, cropping at dried scrub and new shoots when Regina gave her rein. Regina steered the mare gently toward the west; she could teleport, of course, but she appreciated the quiet of riding toward the beach. She found, in the wake of Henry's Christmas visit, she more often craved the scent of the salt air and ocean breezes. Of course, the Pacific never quite smelled like the Atlantic, always warmer and less bracing somehow, but it soothed the wildness in her just the same.

Back at the Inn, Kitty busied herself with stocking the pool bar and generally setting up for the warmer seasons. The pool had been skimmed of winter detritus and chlorinated by the staff-spectre she rarely if ever saw, and there were fresh towels set out like a proper resort. Since the choice of music was hers, the air around the bar filled with dance beats, Afro-Caribbean today, and Kitty moved right into it. She didn't usually dance at work, but she felt bright today and maybe Lara would come down and work with her and they could goof around Cocktail style.

Sam passed through the Copper Cafe in search of a cup of coffee and a salad, or one of the two gorgeous women he'd somehow wound up involved with. His brow scrunched like a caterpillar hurrying away from a predator while he semi-consciously outpaced thoughts about babies and brothers, and possibly babies and girlfriends. His mild scowl wasn't helped by the pack of spirits trailing him and chatting at him about the lives of his family members. He'd asked them not to gossip about people he wasn't close with, but as a consequence, they talked rapidly and often about River's most recent oddness or his mother and Hathaway acting like...well, like him and Molly and Bo, and no thanks. Ditto on Dean and Jane. For all that he looked a little bothered, there wasn't anything menacing or aggressive about it. If anything, the slight tilt of his head as he strolled through the Inn looked thoughtful, as though he listened to something somewhat distant.

Lillith had come to a bit of a routine for arrival days, and around noon, she sat for tea with River Song. They spoke little, and it was difficult to tell whether the women even liked each other. But for all that, Lillith was content with the ritual. If Curnen sang, she would go out to the lawn next and listen. In fact, on such a sunny day, she would undoubtedly flop on the lawn with a sketchbook and a practice notebook, letting her mind float between image and spellcraft as it would. Out here, she would quickly veil herself at the approach of anyone new, but she often was distracted enough that they might catch her in her true form with her all unaware.

Around them, the Inn hummed and buzzed with the happy energy of winter giving way to spring. The most patient and subtle would undoubtedly note the undercurrents of tension, fear, frustration, and boredom that built up over time. But for day, at least so far as this four were aware, the worst of it had been suspended, in favor of enjoying warm sun and the company of friends.

[OOC: GP. It's a gorgeous day. Come and play! All four of mine can be available. Ping me if you're inspired to tag. <3 Welcome, Carol, Toby, and Number Five!]

Comments

Toby - Assigned Threads

[st_warhammer]

Toby was bone tired, they had just defeated Morgana and stopped the Eternal Darkness, saving all of Arcadia. Toby was also excited, THEY HAD JUST DEFEATED MORGANA. Seriously. Like THE MORGANA. He did a little fist pump on the sidewalk outside his house to change out of his armor and take a nap.

"Toby, you and your friends just saved the world, what are you going to do next?" He joked as he opened the door. "Nana! I'm home!" That wasn't unusual to not have her answer, she was hard of hearing. He shrugged and headed toward the stairway to his room but when he'd turned, the house had disappeared around him to desert scrub.

"WHHHHHAAAAAATTTTT?" His eyes widened as he dragged the word out. "Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh. Is this something that Morgana did? Did she do some wacky spell on us? Jim, I have to call Jim." He reached for his phone but forgot he had the armor on and couldn't get to his pants pocket. "Stupid armor. Okay not stupid, awesome armor, but stupid armor."

He turned to see a stone building in the distance and headed in that direction. Hopefully there would be a phone to call Jim to see if he knew what was going on. Or at least he could find some answers and a bathroom... he really had to go. Stupid, awesome armor.

It had taken longer than he thought to get to the inn and he pulled open the door but the edge of the hammer hit the edge of the door and he had to back out. "Darn it!" Toby had to enter the lobby going sideways so he and the hammer could make their way through. "Um, hello?!"

Thor & Toby

[st_ormbreaker]

Thor Odinson had, like a few others, taken to staying in the lobby during check-in days. He just managed to finish a chapter of a book on American law (all in preparation, he hoped, for a future Asgardian refugee ship arrival on Earth) when he looked up to see a small armored boy holding an enormous hammer.

Thor's reaction is immediate; he launches to his feet, eyes wide and smile broad and approaches Toby. "Is that yours?" he asks pointing to the hammer. "That's amazing! The fire --" Thor twirls a finger. "-- is that you or it? Are you making the fire?"

Re: Thor & Toby

[st_warhammer]

Toby looked up and up and up and up when Thor rose to his feet. "WOAH." He said with the same wide eyes as when he'd arrived in this place. He wasn't as tall as ARRRRGGGHHH but he was ginormous. Of course that was coming from a five foot two inch teen.

That awestruck expression evaporated with Thor's comment about his hammer. It morphed to one of excitement, and all thoughts of Morgana and magic disappeared. "I know, right?" He said excitedly. "It is pretty awesome and I wish I was doing that with the fire but it does that on its own." He twirled it like it weighed nothing and at that moment it practically did. But like all things that you were just learning, Toby didn't quite have the handle on when it was going to be light and when it was going to weigh a ton.

Right in the middle of the twirl, the hammer suddenly stopped having fire and the head hit the ground with a loud thump. Not enough to crack the floor but almost. "Man, I hate when that happens."

Number Five - Assigned and OTA

[st_illfive]

Forty-five years, to get here. Forty-five years, innumerable murders, and puberty twice, to get back and save the world, and the world was getting destroyed again anyway. To anyone else, it would have been a depressing failure. To Number Five, it was progress.

Last time, his family had died. This time, he would save them. Last time Harold Jenkins had lived long enough for Luther to rip his eye out. This time Vanya had dealt with the problem herself. Last time he hadn't known what had happened. This time and going forward, he did.

He had no doubt he could carry his family with him on one big jump into the past. He'd never even thought about carrying anyone with him before, much less tried, but since doing six at once (seven if you counted Ben) was their only shot at fixing things for real? Number Five always did whatever was necessary, and allowed nothing to stop him.

Was it harder? Yes. Were the equations compounded to the nth degree by having to account for 4-6 additional temporal change vectors and having that many more consciousnesses to project into suspended quantum-state versions of themselves? Oh hell yes. Was traveling to the past harder than traveling to the future? Of course.

But he did it. He felt all of them move into the quantum state with him, even unconscious Vanya. Even a wispy thing that was probably Ben. No doubt the fire burning out the world swept across the stage seconds later, but they were safely out of it.

When he opened his eyes on the world, the first thing he did was look around for his siblings. They were... not there. And, come to that, the 'world' seemed to be a desert surrounding an old-ish road. Not a city. Not civilization. For a few seconds, it was like the bottom of Five's stomach dropped out - had he miscalculated? Was he back in the apocalypse? What had happened to his brothers and sisters?

Only for a few seconds, though, because then Five kicked adaptation into gear. What had happened to the others was either simple or complicated. If simple, they were all in this time, but physically scattered. He might have rounded wrong on the spatial coordinates. If that, they wouldn't be hard to find. If it was complicated, well... that would be harder. So be it.

In the meantime he had to take care of himself. A less upset look around revealed an intact building in the distance. Five stepped towards it and jumped outside the front door. It looked like a hotel? Tacky decor aside, it was nicer than the ones the Commission booked for its agents, but Five put a 'to be dealt with later' mental pin in the idea that maybe all of this was Commission fuckery.

Front desk, complete with desk drone staring at him. (Five ignored the desk drone.) Restaurant/cafe to one side. Fine. He'd have to swing by again and convince someone to let a thirteen-year-old rent a room with no parents in sight, but for now he pulled at space and jumped elsewhere.

This seemed like the only structure in easy range, he had to stay at least temporarily. But he was not going to do it without a little recon first.

Re: Number Five - Assigned and OTA

[st_opsummoningme]

Illyana had just finished pouring the piping hot water for her tea in the library cafe, cool eyes widening suddenly as the spatial rift tore open practically on top of her. She felt it, moreso than saw it, vibrating through her senses like a struck tuning fork. Her hand clenched around the handle of the kettle, and her hair whisked as she whirled to see the culprit of this flash-phasing nonsense.

Which was to say - a petite woman with long blonde hair and blunt bangs was there to glare at the boy as he appeared adjacent to the cafe section of the library, sleeveless black turtleneck and vivid red checkered slacks ending in black leather ankle boots. "You would yield a better understanding of your situation if you would stop that aimless teleportation and engage with your environment," she informed him crisply, replacing the electric kettle onto its base.

Re: Number Five - Assigned and OTA

[st_illfive]

Five ignored her, for the moment, and looked around. What kind of hotel had a library, of all things? And even after a glance he could see that some of the books looked handwritten, which was... odd.

Huh. So. A nicer hotel than the Commission usually reserved, in the middle of the desert, with a very strange library "I'll engage when I'm interested. What's the date? The exact date."

Five and Liz

[st_hotflashes]

"Are you... looking to have something to eat?" Liz was working at the restaurant at the moment and when she saw someone who had to be a new arrival, she approached slowly - she had learned that not everyone showed up at the best moments of their life. She offered a friendly smile.

Re: Five and Liz

[st_illfive]

Five turned slightly to look at the girl and her smile. It wasn’t exactly unpredictable, this was a restaurant. Of sorts, anyway. She wasn’t much older than he looked, though - possibly useful? “Not right now. I’m just... looking around.”

Five/Tony - Bewildered Bedroom Meet

[st_arkravinghazelnut]

226 days had been enough time for Tony to be reasonably okay with the idea of using his room for relaxation. When he'd arrived, it was all pacing around in the common areas until he passed out on a chair or just crashing in Thor's room. He still never used Rock Bottom for sleep too many times in a row, though. Small doses and all that.

Dragging himself straight into his room, the combination of brain fog and auto-pilot equaled him not even seeing the small figure in his work area, tossing himself on the bright red couch and settling in whatever position he ended up in.

Re: Five/Tony - Bewildered Bedroom Meet

[st_illfive]

For his part, Five ignored the man flopping on the couch. This wasn’t a room where someone lived, clearly. He wouldn’t have cared about intruding normally, but this time he didn’t even spare a thought. There was too much else in the room.

The conspiracy diagram on the wall contained nothing familiar and therefore wasn’t especially interesting beyond confirming what Ms. Rasputin had mentioned about people coming from multiple universes. Also, while he stood there, a robot arm offered him a juice box, which was... interesting. (Also interesting but not immediately relevant was the collection of decorated robot vacuums.)

Five accepted it because why not, so when he moved on to investigating the bed, he ended up sitting cross-legged on it, rifling through papers with one hand and occasionally sipping from the juice box in the other.

Number Five and John

[st_runningshoes]

John is in the library; with his suitcoat off but still has his vest on and is sitting in a frustrated pose. There are a lot of science books about technology; some open and scattered around the room.

Meanwhile, this is resting on a table top and in a notebook there are some notes. How this item is indestructible; with freeze, heat and drop tests.

And that it lights up on one end and makes a strange sound.

But how does it work and what is it?

What to do next? What to do?

Carol - Assigned Threads

[st_arforce]

She had not expected to be needed. Earth, or C-53 as the Kree called it, was a somewhat rural planet. Not in the sense that it didn't contain a lot of life (or, well, did), but it was farther away from other life-containing planets.

Space is exhausting, but particularly so when traveling alone and in urgent circumstances. When Carol was flying through the cold vacuum, the only heat that she was exposed to was her own, generated from burning energy by traveling at top speed. She had made the promise almost thirty years prior that if she was ever needed, there was a way to reach her.

And then the page came through.

Carol had left immediately. Her energy projection carrying her through a couple galaxies before returning to the Milky Way. She had been charting her course through the system embedded within her suit, and the closer she came to Earth, the fuzzier the coordinates and the precision became until it shut down. Her computer was first, her vision was second--her heat signature went cold and her vision went black.

When she awoke, there was--hay. It was, in fact, everywhere around her, to the point where she lifted her head and sneezed. Questioning her senses, she lifted her gloved fingers to her exposed cheek before taking some skin between her index and thumb and pinching herself. After satisfying her curiosity, she slowly moved upwards. Her arm raised, she began to fuss with her system before it gave what was the modern day equivalent of a spinning circle. Frustrated, she began to examine the area closer--was this some sort of attack and she was just still unconscious and dreaming this? The Skrulls had the sort of technology, but she had made peace with them. That did not mean that others didn't have such abilities, though.

Even though her system was not able to adjust, she was willing to trust herself; it was all she had left, at this point. Pulling herself up and examining the area around here, she squinted--a stable?

Maria had her plane in a makeshift stable; it was not so farfetched to believe she had landed where there would be one. Ever so carefully, she quietly moved towards the stable, moving to peer in and hoping to see a plane to command. It did not matter to her that she couldn't pull the coordinates for the last place Fury was; a plane was comfort.

So it was much to her surprise that there was no plane, but horses. And a certain orange tabby that looked particularly familiar to the point where Carol cocked her head before whispering quietly, "Goose?"

Re: Carol - Assigned Threads

[st_oriedqueen]

Two stalls over, Regina was giving Grace a good curry to help shed out her winter coat. An unusual sound, a flicker of the lights, and a surge of something not not magic, but not really magic either, and then she heard rustling in one of the stalls that had been empty when she came in.

Grace's nostrils flared and her tail swished unhappily. The set of her ears told Regina it wasn't coincidental. She gave the mare's shoulder a pat, unclipped the lead from her headstall and slipped out, shutting the stall door behind her.

She had made it nearly to the other stall when she saw a woman speaking to a cat that she seemed to think was a goose. Her gaze narrowed slightly, but there was only a vaguely maternal mirth in her voice when she asked, "Just how hard did you hit your head when you fell?"

Carol & Buffy

[st_accato]

Buffy had been at the inn long enough that the hope for someone from her world had faded long ago. It would be a shock if someone from her world showed up now, but didn't mean she didn't try to catch a peek at new faces when word began to spread of new arrivals.

She stopped in the bakery to grab a small plate of brownies on the way to the lobby. Because why pass up a treat like that? And on the off chance that Willow or Xander had arrived, she could share it. If they didn't, well then all the more for her. Yay, Slayer metabolism.

Sadly, as she thought, there wasn't a Willow or a Xander but as she turned from Daryl at the front desk, she did notice an unfamiliar face. That meant new arrival. Buffy glanced at the plate of brownies and then at the other blonde, time to be welcome wagon.

Buffy could tell from her body language that she wasn't just arriving at the inn, which meant someone else had given her the information about the place. That left helping someone get used to it or just another friendly face. She approached her with a smile and her plate. "Hi. Welcome to Madonna Inn. I'm Buffy. You know what helps me after finding myself in another dimension with strangers in a strange place? Chocolate brownies, want one?"

OTA

[st_ockandbarrel]

Sleep when the baby sleeps, that's what all the books said. But Percy had work to do and neither he nor his beloved wife were willing to let the new center of their world out of their sight.

It was Vex's turn to attempt to nap, or whatever else she chose to do in the time that Percy claimed his daughter's presence. A bit of ingenuity had adapted a trail bag into a small pouch that he could wrap around his chest, keeping baby Elaina snugly against his heart. Thus situated, he took her with him as he worked on a few non-forge projects. Together, father and daughter went up to the library and collected a coffee, stopping to check out a couple of engineering books and then to the women's restroom to make a couple sketches.

Why there was only a baby changing table in the women's restroom Percy had no idea but he meant to correct it.

Percy settled at a table in the library and set to work while Elaina napped, small mouth slack and wet against his formerly clean white shirt. Her dark hair was surprisingly full, as he had been of the opinion that babies were properly bald for at least a good year.

Re: OTA

[st_andingtall]

The library was one of the few places the ghosts didn't chatter at Sam. Since he couldn't answer without speaking aloud, and Illyana didn't care for noise in the library, they'd learned not to try to follow him in there.

Relieved to have some time to himself but less than interested in his own thoughts, he went to get another cup of coffee and to dig around for anything to complement the Enochian teleportation sigils he'd been working on.

He found a text he hadn't seen in several months--which meant one of the sorceresses or wizards had been at it--and drew it out to take to his usual table. So lost in his thoughts about witches, wizards, sorceresses, and whatever he was now, Sam didn't see Percy until he'd already pulled out a chair. And when he did, there was something awkward about how he was holding his arms.

"Hey Percy," he said quietly. "What's wrong with your--oh." He blinked, his eyes widening when he released the straps around his chest weren't bandages but a baby. Dean would be next, he couldn't help thinking, before he remembered to smile and offer, "Congratulations. How's Vex doing?" You were supposed to ask after the mother when a child was born, right?

Mildmay (OTA)

[st_onecoldfox]

Nobody wanted Mildmay giving the welcome to the inn speech. Kethe, most people could barely understand him even when they had understood what he was talking about, let alone when trying to explain something like the inn and how they got there when nobody really had a clue.

It was better, leaving those first conversations to the people who were good at 'em, like Corbie. He'd stay out of the way, in the spa. Maybe somebody would come by wanting a massage. Til then, he waited for a load of towels to come out of the dryer, and flipped through one volume of an encyclopedia set they'd had in the library.

Re: Mildmay (OTA)

[st_eampunk]

After a long workout, Molly's muscles were screaming. Her leg hurt more than the rest of her body but that was normal even with her wizard healing. She opened the door, saw Mildmay and smiled. "Hey, feel like giving me a massage? I think I overdid it working out."

Mildmay/Valkyrie - Lessons in Relaxation

[st_allionofdoom]

Entering the parlor, Valkyrie noted the tumbling sound of the drying machine. When first Valkyrie had encountered the dryer, it involved some attempts at instinctive operation that ended with holes and frayed fabric where the frustratingly delicate clothing was concerned. Some advice for Bo was enough to set her straight.

It was arrival day, but she wasn't in the prime welcoming mood--not yet, anyway. The last few nights had involved some charged debate about Asgardian refugee settlement with Thor, and the tension was accumulating with no signs of leaving.

"Can you fit me in?" Valkyrie nodded at the redhead, rotating her bare arms restlessly. "Certain places I can't reach myself."

Toby - OTA

[st_warhammer]

Toby had gone from scared that Morgana had done something to him and his friends while she'd had them tied up, some magic whammy with delayed stuff, to excited to be on an adventure. He'd taken his armor off and was now comfortable in his usual yellow shirt, red sweater vest and brown pants. Time to explore!

He'd discovered a bakery, yum. Then was profoundly disappointed that there weren't any burritos at the cafe, but that's okay they had other stuff. There was a pool, which was cool. All in all, if he was going to be on an adventure that wasn't home or a Troll Market, this wasn't so bad.


[ooc: Find Toby anywhere!]

Toby and Mack

[st_oryboard]

Mack was working on his laptop, coloring the last pages of Miguel's comic that he'd been working on when he looked up to see a new face. He smiled slightly when he heard him being a little sad that there weren't burritos.

"Don't worry." He offered, "they can probably make you one later, but it will be a chicken burrito. You'll notice a lot of chicken food."

Toby and Liz

[st_hotflashes]

She caught the boy when he walked into the bakery. It was check-in day, so she was expecting to see new faces and when the boy was someone she didn't recognize, Liz naturally assumed the boy just arrived.

"Hey." She offered him a smile. "You want something? The brownies today are really good."

Toby and Ned

[st_guyinthechair]

There were exactly two fat people in the inn and one of them was an adult which meant when Ned saw someone else who was similar in size, his eyebrows lifted in sudden, strange excitement. Without thinking too much, he hurried to catch up with the boy who he did not recognize. "Uh, hey! You're new, right?"

Thor and Carol

[st_ormbreaker]

Thor had been able to meander outside when he caught sight of an unfamiliar blonde woman standing at the front desk, messing around with the lobby phone.

"Messing around" wasn't the appropriate phrase for it. The phone had been very carefully deconstructed, its bottom panel removed and set aside; its wires, now exposed, were being quickly and with careful precision, as if this task had been completed dozens of times before.

Thor couldn't help but be reminded a little of Tony. He stops watching her work and looks at her, mentally deliberates the pros and cons of interrupting her, then finally says: "Hello."

Re: Thor and Carol

[st_arforce]

Carol's gloved fingers were busy working on the wires, trying to establish just the right amount to reach the frequency of her pager, and maybe she could get a message--

And then she looks up, and there's a large, muscular figure near her. She does not lift her head, but her eyes rise and she catches sight of him. "Hi there." She is not intentionally unfriendly, but it is clear her attention is more focused on the phone.

While Carol is busy dismantling the phone, an orange and white feline makes its presence known at Thor's feet, stretching before kneading at his legs.