strangetrip | [GP/EP] Check-In Day

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[GP/EP] Check-In Day

Why Caroline had needed her to help with Check-In Day she hadn't bothered to say. Just, "you said you'd help," and when Regina protested she wasn't good with people, "aren't you a Queen or a Mayor or something?" complete with shooing gestures. While Regina found Caroline more exasperating the terrifying, she did have a point.

So Regina suited up--literally, gathered her files and folders, coffee mug, pens and pocketed the wooden carving of Henry/Roland Robin had made for her, then headed for the cafe. If, polished and politic and patently Busy, she didn't offer newcomers the brightest or warmest smile when they arrived, it was nevertheless confident and quite possibly reassuring.

Caroline did friendly. Regina...did knowledgeable and polite. Dot and Ignis had been asked to provide finger food on catering trays. The still-grieving Miss Pryde had been tasked with samovars of tea and coffee and ice chest of soda and beer. Caroline's welcome baskets sat on the table beside Regina's for easy access. And though she didn't when she was alone in the office, Regina spent the magic to fix her eyesight so she didn't put glasses between her and new arrivals.

Madame Mayor was in.

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"Templars?" Another unfamiliar term.

"Religious warriors obsessed with leashing mages. Every so often there's a decent one, but most of them...most of them just like having power over others and are generally cruel at heart and refuse to see a mage as a person instead of something the rest of the world needs to be protected from." She sighed, feeling terrible for Anders all over again. "Most of the time they let the Dalish alone. They leave the Avvar alone as well too, but really only because they know the Avvar will slaughter them if they try to get anywhere near."

"That sounds..." Rey is clearly struggling to find the right word. "...complicated." It's not quite what she wanted, but how else could you describe what Merrill just explained?

"The Templars don't like the mages... and it sounds like a lot of normal people fear the mages..." Rey says, musing to herself. Then, to Merrill: "Do the mages fight each other, too?"

"Only sometimes," she said, "It depends. Mages are as different as people are. Some are good. Some aren't. Magic's a tool. It's all in how you use it. Most of the fear comes from the way the Tevinter mages treat people, I think. It all goes back centuries and..." She shook her head now. "The war that I mentioned before, the one that's on now. It's- They're calling it the mage rebellion and a lot of people who don't know much of anything are blaming a friend of mine for it. The thing is, people can only be essentially slaves and prisoners for so long before that blows up. I won't say what he did was right at all, but...but I know what his reasoning for it was and I understand that and I also know that it was going to happen whether or not he..." She shook her head. Anders needed help, more help than she thought even Hawke could give him.

"There are some mages who are working with the Templars, who think so little of themselves that they feel like they need to be kept in a circle, and some who are exploiting the chaos but most just want to live in peace without the threat of being made tranquil constantly looming over them, to be able to see their families or to have families of their own. I can't begrudge anyone that."

Corbie snorted, then covered her mouth with her hands and burst into a fit of giggles. "My favorite teacher would tell me to shut up as a sign of affection."

"Mostly I got 'that's enough, Merrill,'" she said, smiling a little fondly as she remembered Marethari once again that day. "What were you studying?"

Rey lightly bites her lower lip, then opens her mouth to speak.

"Where I come from the people who have powers like mine are called Force Users," Rey says. It's probably the closest thing they have to mages. "A long time ago, before I was born, if you had Force Powers, you would go to a school and eventually apprentice under a more experienced Force-user. Eventually you'd graduate and become a Jedi Knight, and some later became Jedi Masters."

A beat.

"There's some Force Users that weren't so good. They called them Sith. They ended up working with the Empire and wiped out the Jedi so there were none left. For a long time, I thought they were a myth."

Rey looks down at her hands. "I don't really understand everything about your mages," she says, "But I've thought a lot about Jedi while learning about them from Qui-Gon... and I can't help but wonder if the Jedi would still be here if the Jedi teachings weren't so rigidly enforced. People just want to live their lives the way they want to."

It sounded similar enough to her. What struck her the most was how introspective Rey looked in that moment. Without thinking much about it, Merrill moved so she could sit next to Rey and rub her back in a way she hoped was comforting.

"I'm glad you have someone to teach you all the same, though."

Merrill's touch is unexpected -- but it's not unwelcome.

Rey looks over at Merrill and smiles. "I'm glad, too. I'm not sure I could have lived as a Jedi. Especially the whole 'there is no emotion' part of the Jedi Code. Did you ever have any mage guidelines you had to follow?"

It sounds like Dalish might have had more freedom in that arena.

"Many, but I doubt they'd make a lot of sense to you and I think maybe we've spent enough time in the past for one day." She smiled a little. "Will you show me more of this place? It looks like there's a great deal more than just this building."

Rey rises to her feet and gives Merrill a nod. "It's not as big as the places I'm used to," she says, leading the way to the door.

She steps out into the hall, holding the door open for Merrill behind her. "Do you want to see the pool? I've started going out there whenever it gets too hot."

After Jakku, Rey never imagined she'd call a place 'too hot', but this place could get uncomfortably warm at times.

"That would be lovely, yes," Merrill said, smiling as she stood smoothly, brushing off her thighs out of sheer habit and following Rey back outside again.

Corbie stilled at that. She could not tell the truth, and at the same time, telling a lie was impossible. She knew she lied like a kid. It was so obvious that she just embarrassed herself when she tried. There were too many magic types around, and she didn't know if she could trust them.

She smiled a little when she found an answer. "Philosophy."

It was close enough to true. Schools of magic were rooted in it.

"Really?" Merrill asked, green eyes bright with interest as she leaned forward a little, ever curious. Even Kirkwall couldn't take that from her.

"What sort of philosophy? I met a philosopher once. Well, he said philosopher, but he really was a very odd man. We found him hanging upside down from a tree branch. Well...sort of. He'd been following us for a while very badly. It was the first we'd had to stop ignoring him." He'd been lucky at the time that he'd been allowed to get away with it and Tamlen hadn't just shot him out of the tree.

Rey leads the way, pointing out more minor landmarks as they walk through the hallway; the few people whose rooms she knows she points out as they make their way to the exit.

The pool is large, flanked on all sides by neat rows of outstretched reclining pool chairs. A few oversized red umbrellas provide shelter from the sun.

To one side stands a green-roofed gazebo; near it, another building stands alone.

"That's the bar," Rey says gesturing to the building. "Kitty works there most of the time." Or at least, Kitty's the only person she's ever saw manning the bar. "She serves more than just alcohol, though."

As they pass the pool, Rey kneels down to dip a hand into the water. It's lukewarm.

"I like the room so long as I don't look up," she said fondly. "And I like that you're here. It makes this place much less daunting to have a friend."

There's something odd looking about the pool, but Merrill supposed that it was just another one of those almost Orlesian things.

"Why does it smell like that?" she asked, swearing she could practically taste some kind of chemical in the air.

"I'm pretty sure that you'd be able to see the hotel from anywhere." Buffy teased him with a wrinkle of her nose. "Even space." Okay, it wasn't that bad! She enjoyed watching him with his cat, though it was probably helping him calm as much as helping the cat.

"And yeah, we haven't figured out if there is a reason we're all here. So far, we can't find a common denominator. People have left, but I have no idea if they've gone back home or not." She was sad for a moment and then shrugged it off mentally. Buffy was determined to see her mom again - and Giles and Willow and Xander.... not so much Anya.

"Heavy lifting?" He arched a brow at her, but was obviously willing to go with her.

"Taste-testing," came her almost too late to be quippy response. Her brain had gotten stuck on a particular image of 'lifting' that shut down the sass for a moment.

Yasmeen's stomach turned rather sharply at the inevitable comparison to nanites her mind leapt to. "In that case, I hope not."

"Why do you think that's weird?" Kitty asked curiously as she led him toward the hotel. "Statistically speaking, it's a high proportion, but law enforcement types make a lot of significant choices." God knew the X-men existed in hundreds of thousands of different universes (according to the world-jumpers). "Also, if anyone's here by choice rather than chance, law and order types make a lot of sense."

The simple but annoying truth of the Madonna Inn was that it was the precisely the sort of conundrum a group of X-men might investigate. She just didn't have much in the way of technological support. Something he'd find out soon enough, since she was opening the door to show him inside.

"Me too," said Fenris.

He showed her his card. "I have a room, apparently. Can you help me find it?"

"Are we friends, Merrill?" He asked softly. "I- I know we don't get along well without Hawke, and when she's here I still manage to say some awful things to you." He wasn't always wrong either, she was a blood mage and she did make a deal with a demon. Bethany had tried to teach him a little tact and he'd listened until she let herself get taken to the Circle.

"You all say awful things to me," she said. Even Hawke from time to time had been mean for no real reason. More often than not, she left all their company feeling like they all thought she was terribly stupid and irredeemable. "I'd rather have terrible friends than no friends at all." Gingerly, she moved the cat off her lap and stood up. "I'm sorry. I should go. I've taken up enough of your time."

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