strangetrip | Check-In Day: Around the Inn

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Check-In Day: Around the Inn

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!]

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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 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?"

Edited 2019-03-16 04:27 (UTC)

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."

The brighteness never fades from Thor's face, even when the hammer hit the ground. He had some of the same problems with Mjolnir when Odin first bestowed the hammer to him.

"No, no, it's great!" he exclaims. "The twirling -- that'll come later, I used to mess that up all the time and then I got very good at it." The twirling was what made it possibly for him to fly, after all!

"Can I give it a try?"

"Well I don't know." Toby looked at his hammer and then at the guy BUT like with his friend AAARRGGHHH, there was an instant connection. Plus, he seemed to know about hammers and how they worked.

Then he shrugged and pointed to the hammer on the ground. "Okay, sure. But I gotta warn ya, it's really heavy when it's like that, but it's sneaky and changes to super light."

"It looks heavy," Thor agrees, and he reaches down and lifts up the weapon easily. "My hammer -- its name was Mjolnir, by the way -- was enchanted by my father so only those worthy of the power of Thor could lift it." Thor tosses the hammer up into the air and catches it, then tilts it from side to side, judging the balance of it.

Thor doesn't spin it. Not quite yet.

"Woah." He was impressed that he could lift the hammer. The only thing that Toby knew about enchanted hammers was with Troll magic. The guy didn't look like a troll but he knew that changers were human looking and then turned into their trollselves.

"Is your dad a Troll?" Mjolnir sounded like Troll language to him.

Thor lets out a bark of laughter. "No, my father is a god," he says, grinning. "Is there an Odin where you come from?"

It seemed even in worlds where he didn't actually exist, there were some where his family existed in legend.

Odin. Odin. Odin why was that name..... "OH MY GOD! Seriously, dude? Are you Thor? You're Thor aren't you?! THOR IS HOLDING MY HAMMER. Okay that didn't sound good, but that is totally cool!"

"Yes!" Thor's grin grows impossibly broader at Toby's reaction. "And your hammer is amazing! Where did you get it?"

Thor turns it around in his hand, though his eyes never leave Toby's face. Everything he says is true -- the quality, the balance, the weight of it are all remarkable -- like something that had been lifted from the very forges of Nidavellir.

Toby stood a little straighter, sort of harder to do with his stature, but he did. "I got it ---.' He was about to say something else to make him sound cooler, but he liked Thor a lot so he told him the truth.

"Um, it kind of started out in a cursed box, the curse not the hammer, and Vendel had to put it somewhere so he put it in the hammer. BUT it was my idea to put it in the warhammer. Pretty sweet, right? Anyway, the hammer has the ability to be really light or really heavy because it pulls on gravity. And when you use it, flame-oh!" He pointed to the hammer being flame-y in Thor's hands.

Thor looks down at it. True enough, the hammer is suddenly ablaze with flames.

Thor spins the Hammer around rapidly with one hand, the same way he did with Mjolnir before he was preparing to take flight with it. Flames pinwheel with the movement, sending little sparks of fire skyward.

Thor lets out a soundless laugh, then offers it back to Toby. "How long have you been using it?"

Toby reached for the hammer and was about to answer Thor when the hammer began to rise and Toby (and hammer) went toward the ceiling. "Oh man." He'd only flown a couple of times with it but he can do this, he knows he can. He shifted his weight toward the floor, just like he did when he saved Darci. Luckily it worked again and he landed.

"Whew, I almost thought that you'd have to grab my foot. I've only been using it a few months." Toby set the head of the hammer back on the ground, but he still held on to the shaft.

"Yours makes you fly too?!"

Thor already loves this hammer. "I had to spin mine around to make me fly, but I had all sorts of problems with it. Crashed into many, many trees."

Toby actually felt better that someone like THOR had issues with his hammer, too. Especially the flying part, that was hard.

"Me, too! Well, not trees, at least not yet, but I've crashed a couple of times. The curse in the hammer manipulates gravity so it kind of makes me fly but mostly, I just hang on when it becomes lighter than air."

Thor nods at all of this. It sounds like their hammers were different -- but still had some remarkable similarities.

"What's your name?"

"Oh man. I got so excited I totally forgot I need to find a phone. I'm Toby, and is there a phone here I can use. I have to call my best friend Jim."

He was pretty sure Morgana hadn't spell whammied them, but he still needed to call his friend to make sure something weird hadn't happened to him, too. Well and to tell him that he'd met THOR! Totally had to get a selfie with him as soon as he got out of his armor.

Thor grimaces.

"Oh, about that..." This was the part of the conversation Thor hated. "We're stuck here, in this pocket dimension. You're not going to be able to call out, but eventually, you might end up going home."

"Eventually?!" Toby's jaw dropped and he was speechless for a minute. Which was rare for Toby and then got really freaked. "Wait. I can't use my phone? No social media? No streaming? No calling friends?"

That was worst than the eventually part.

"Well, you can use your phone to take pictures," Thor says, trying to look on the bright side of things. "Or listen to music you have downloaded."

"Yeah, I guess that's not so bad." Toby was always a glass half full kind of guy. He was still going to miss watching movies and checking his social media, but mostly he was going to miss his friends but there wasn't anything he could do about that so that got pushed aside.

Toby looked around the lobby and then back at Thor, "so um people just hang out here? Like a really long vacation?" Which could be cool. Sure, his friends weren't here but it's kind of like his own adventure.

Thor thinks about it, then nods; that was one way of putting it. "Basically, yes."

Frankly, that was probably the best way of putting it.

"There's a creepy old man at the front desk," he says. "He already knows your name and has a key to your room and no, you can't change it." Thor had been fine with his floral mess, but the room interiors were often a source of angst for the inn's occupants.

"Um." Toby was a little embarrassed, but only a little. "I don't have any money." Well he had five dollars but he was pretty sure that wouldn't cover the hotel room.

"Oh," Thor says, as if the thought just occurred to him that this might be Something That Newcomers Need to Know. "All of it is free. People usually do things to help out around the inn, but the accommodations and food are ample enough for all."

"Seriously?!" Toby was excited at that news. "Everything?" He was thinking it was like an all expenses paid vacation that you won - or the lottery.

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