strangetrip | Check-in May 15

Entry tags:

Check-in May 15

It was the 15th of the month and given the possibility of arrivals, Caroline decided that something should be done to make new people a little more comfortable.

So she was sitting in the lobby, wearing a bright yellow sundress and surrounded by a riot of materials. Her feet were bare, as her sandals were lying off to the side, and her toenails were blue. She was creating Inn survival kits. There was a little pamphlet of explanations: people call the guy at the desk Daryl; yes,everything is free; no, you can't leave; just be firm about towels. A basket of sundries - snacks from the gift shop, sunscreen, guidebook, toothbrush etc. There was a towel, because obviously.

She considered adding a bottle of alcohol, but not everyone drank - she'd noticed at least a few of the current residents who didn't - and if they did drink TOO much, she didn't want to encourage it.

Maybe chocolate?

Caroline jotted down that as a note and resumed chewing on the end of her pen. The lobby door opened shortly thereafter and she looked up with a smile.

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Because most of the rooms didn't HAVE a bath, for one. But she didn't tell him that.

She eyed the key, made a quick detour to the desk to make sure she knew what room it was and then when the shield glowed said, "Phosphorescence."

"Magic," he countered, but let her lead the way to "his" room. The sooner he got there, the sooner he could wash up, heal himself, and try a Sending to Z. He wasn't even sure if he had enough strength to Send before sleep, but fuck if he wasn't going to try.

She rolled her eyes, but in the light outside he probably couldn't see. At his door she held up the key, indicated the slot for it and inserted it. When she withdrew the card the thing blinked green lights and she opened the door.

"Do you need to try it yourself?"

Why not?

Joanna took the cocktail napkin from under her drink and with a quiet "caerula," smoothed it under her palm. In the wake of her hand, the paper shifted to a bright blue. Once River had had a chance to see, Joanna's hand traveled back over the napkin. "Abrogare." It returned the inn's signature pink.

"Cheating."

That was unexpected, and she frowned. Magic was just science she couldn't explain, she assured herself.

"Did you change the napkin, or how I saw it?"

After finding out about Dot's pastries, the cafe had become a staple of Piotr's daily life at the Inn. He had a favorite seat with good light and could spend hours sketching while enjoying an unhealthy amount of baked goods. It didn't register until he started hearing conversations pick up that it was a check-in day.

On one of his trips up to refill his plate, he made sure to get extra and stopped at the now occupied table next to his.

"Hello. Would you like pastry?"

Dot was walking past the shop with a basket of muffins for the front desk when she noticed the girl looking at bathing costumes. Dropping the muffins off with Darryl she quickly returned, not sure if she should interfere but recognizing the expression on the girls face.

"Hard to choose," she said entering the shop with a friendly smile. "I ended up making my own." Sort of.

After Corbie had found her room and let herself have that storm of a good cry she refused to have in public, she'd washed her face, kicked her books under the small country she now had to call her bed, reassured herself that her magic was shuttered, and went back out to explore.

If she was going to be stuck here, after all, she should at least know where she was and have some sense of where she was going. Carefully avoiding 'Daryl,' she started in the lobby... where she couldn't quite resist playing with the switch on a lamp, marveling at the electric light.

Snow White was never particular about the clothes she took from the shop, never much minding how well they fit so long as they covered her and she could get them dirty. She was not used to being terribly interested in her appearance.

Which was why it was so strange and even shocking when the sight of Sansa made her feel so self-conscious.

"I don't understand those things," she found herself saying. And then even despite her height she practically ducked behind a rack like she wanted to hide from what she'd said.

"Why would I?" Kash rolled his eyes right back at her. "We have locks in Exandria." None that functioned like that, but magic was magic. If putting the card in the slot unlocked the door, so be it.

The decor of the "room" was another matter. Silver, black velvet, deep red, and two beds big enough to put Shorthalt's wildest fantasies to shame. "This.... is hideous." Z would probably love it.

Sansa looked up in surprise before relaxing a little with a small smile in the woman's direction. It was a brief look that switched to one of curiosity as she pushed another hanger over to cover one that she wasn't interested in. Or, more accurately, didn't have the courage to wear.

"You made your own? How?"

Snow's behavior towards clothes would definitely remind the redhead of her sister but she could never make the same claim of not being interested in her appearance. She knew it was silly to be as concerned as she was but looking good had always been important to her and some habits were hard to break.

She was still studying a floral designed bathing suit when she caught a bit of movement out of the corner of her head and looked up at Snow just in time for the other young woman to claim she didn't understand bathing suits.

Smiling softly when Snow ducked down, Sansa merely nodded. "I don't really understand them either but I've seen some other women wearing them, so I thought I would try one. I'm just not sure which one."

Moving so she could peek around the rack at Snow, her smile grew. "Do you have one?"

"Layering and tailoring mostly." Dot moved into the shop and selected a plain blue speedo suit similar to what she had started with and showed it to the girl.

"Not as modest as I was used to but it's close to the bottom layer of a swimming costume from home.

This time she did roll her eyes, locks maybe but if he didn't know what the key card was for it wouldn't be amiss to practice. They could be trickier than they looked.

"My room has horses," She told him seriously scanning the decor of his room, and reaching out to touch some of the velvet.

"Apparently mine comes with ladies of the evening," Kash replied irritably. Something about the room was unrestful and he needed rest more than anything but Zahra.

He stepped inside and set his spear down, leaning against the couch, and also took the moment to lift the plate off his chest. Once he'd rested it on the couch as well, Kash made an inventory of the room's spaces, hiding places, ambush angles, and escape routes. That led him to a room with marble-like surfaces, a set in basin, a closet with knobs, and a low chair-shaped device with a hole in it.

"Too bad they're not here to explain what all this is for," he grumbled, mostly to himself, and reached for a knob thing on the basin.

"That is a sink," since she was here and she could explain what all of it was for. "The right tap is cold water, the left is hot."

She gestured at the nearest other item, "That is where you are meant to urinate or deficate."

She flushed to show what happened, watching the watched swirl away.

"Holy gods." Kash loosed a low whistle for what he now placed mentally as a commode. "A private, indoor toilet..." He shook his head. Some things about this place were all right. That, he did have an urge to try for himself, but he could wait until she left at least.

Instead, he twisted the taps and jumped back, startled (and in pain), when water rushed out. "Whoa."

Commode. Good word.

"You are injured." She said, likely stating the obvious as he reacted in pain and surprise. Then she poked him lightly in the ribs. "You will require medical assistance."

See THIS was why Simon should be here.

"There are bandages in the shop, and liniment in the stables." Okay it was for horses, but still.

"Ow," Kash growled. "I know that." But he was too fascinated with the water splashing into the basin and the bar of something that proved to be soap to be truly irritable.

On the other hand, his kidneys were informing him he needed to empty them and see how much damage they'd taken, and he wasn't going to do that with her present.

"I'm in no condition to go prancing around the stables." He offered her a smile that he knew to be far less charming than that of most of his friends, but nice enough to look at. "Would you mind, terribly, going to get them, or asking someone else to?"

"You need not make excuses if you need to relive yourself." She told him seriously turning to the shower to turn the taps on there as well so the spray rained down within the cubicle.

"You also require a shower. I will return with liniment." She still had his room key after all.

She was reading his mind. But she didn't believe in magic? "Okay, stop doing that. It's weird." It wasn't that reading his mind was weird. Z did it without spells. It was weird because he didn't know her. Also, "It's also not safe." Vesh could reach through his thoughts and hurt her.

But she was being helpful, if strange, so he did tell her, "But I'd appreciate that. Thanks."

She looked down at her feet, hair falling in a dark curtain across her face and then after a long moment peeked over at him.

"Stopping is not an option." Another pause. "No off switch."

Then she was gone on silent (bare) feet to get him liniment. For horses. And possibly clean clothing. Should she have asked if he wanted food?

"Fascinating, aren't they?" Phryne smiled conspiratorial at the new young woman. "It's really quite ingenious. Electricity is routed along wires to terminal destinations." She was hardly a scientist, but the basic principles didn't exceed her considerable grasp.

"You're newly arrived," she added and then offered, "Miss Phryne Fisher." "The Honourable" tended to confuse people here or cause them to show unnecessary deference, so she left it off.

"I'm afraid it is perfectly normal to feel stupid most of the time for a while upon first arriving," Alcuin said apologetically. "But I can guarantee you that nearly no one here would judge you for it. He gestured for her to follow after him as he started walking towards that building.

"I should probably warn you about the rooms," he said, thinking that something simple to focus on might be good. "They're... well, many of them are pretty hideous, when it comes to decor. Though you get used to it. Floral prints, clashing colors, that sort of thing. My room looks like someone's idea of a luxurious brothel from someone who doesn't think much of brothels."

She had found her room, which was… strange, to say the least, although Laynia had to admit the stained glass was beautiful. And being built into the rock like it was reminded her of Muir. Which was probably the closest she was going to get to Muir for the foreseeable future, she thought glumly, sipping at the drink she’d asked for at the cafe and wishing it was Angus’s cider. Surely they would be looking for her. Maybe Frank could manage… something.

And maybe she was being unduly optimistic, or at least, trying too hard to avoid focusing on her current situation. Which wasn’t really as bad as it could have been, Laynia admitted to herself. The people seemed genuinely friendly, there were no obvious threats in the immediate vicinity (she had done some prowling about, after identifying her room), and things could have been a lot worse. She was used to dislocation, she reminded himself, used to having to make home of a new place. There was no point in being miserable while she was here. Too often that involved making other people miserable, and she wasn’t about to do that.

She'd been lost in her own thoughts and hadn't heard the man approach; she managed not to quite jump out of her skin. "Hi," Laynia said abruptly. "Um... pastry? I... I suppose so. Yes. Thank you?" She was hungry, oddly enough.

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Page 6 of 12

Check-in May 15

Re: After Caroline, Joanna, and Rey

Re: After Caroline, Joanna, and Rey

Re: After Caroline, Joanna, and Rey

Re: OTA

Re: OTA

Re: Assigned threads

Re: OTA

OTA

Re: OTA

Re: After Caroline, Joanna, and Rey

no subject

no subject

no subject

Re: After Caroline, Joanna, and Rey

Re: After Caroline, Joanna, and Rey

Re: After Caroline, Joanna, and Rey

Re: After Caroline, Joanna, and Rey

Re: After Caroline, Joanna, and Rey

Re: After Caroline, Joanna, and Rey

Re: After Caroline, Joanna, and Rey

Re: After Caroline, Joanna, and Rey

Re: After Caroline, Joanna, and Rey

Re: OTA

Re: Assigned threads

Re: Assigned threads