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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Percy raised his eyebrows behind his glasses like he was entirely calm and collected in spite of the fact that his girlfriend had just shown up looking like ten miles of the Abyssal plane after not seeing her for months.

"In the lobby. Vax is with her."

Not fooled in the slightest by Percy's playing it cool (after all, he'd seen him when Vex died the first time), Kash rolled his eyes, muttered something piquant about the de Rolos of Whitestone under his breath, and plowed through the cafe into the lobby.

He arrived in time to hear died on me and his blood froze. "Who died? How long ago? Where??" The questions spilled from his lips even as his gaze swept over Vex, diagnosing her condition. Battered, in need of substantial healing. "Is anyone besides you hurt?"

She couldn't say it. She'd barely managed to force the word out the once. But she looked at Kash, blinked in confusion which did nothing for the tears silently running down her cheeks, and looked back at her brother as close to an answer as she could give.

"But... you brought him back? I..."

This was all too fucking much. Was she shaking? She couldn't tell anymore. "I believe I need a drink. A very large. Very strong. Drink. Possibly several. Please."

It had taken Vax a minute to hear what Vex had said, expression half stunned, brows half furrowed - to really take it in - and by then Kash had made his way there, with Percy in tow. What she was saying, it only made sense to him if she'd showed up at a different time from him, as Percy had done. Either Percy had been holding out on that little bit of information (it was Percy), or she'd come from even later.

It was the timing that he doubted, moreso than the idea of his dying itself. That wasn't difficult at all.

Vax'ildan took her gently by the shoulders, picking up her chin to make her look him in the eyes. "Right now," he reminded her softly, "I'm here, you're here - even those two," he nodded in the direction of the others without looking away. "And we're all alive." The figuring-out of all the rest could happen when she wasn't shaking like a fucking leaf under his hands.

Vax took the broom from Vex's hold carefully, and used his hand on her shoulder to steer her to a chair off to one side where she could sit and collect herself while Kash did his thing.

Percy followed and when Kash seemed to have Vex's attention, he gripped Vax's shoulder. "I didn't know," he said, answering the unasked. "And if it was Raishan, I don't know why she's wet."

Percy hated not having answers. Knowledge had been his only advantage for so long.

"She's safe for now, at least."

Edited 2017-06-06 20:23 (UTC)

He was a lot less drunk than he had been. It was amazingly how walking in 1g, and having several shocks thrown at you sobered you up. Later? He was making no promises. That gin would go down well later, as he tried to obliterate what he learned in order to get home. It might work.

"Orthostawhatsit?" he asked, though sitting down seemed like a really good idea, and he did just that, feeling a little less sick as he did so. It would take a while to get used to having nothing overhead.

"All the blood is in your legs," River sat up and gave the man sitting not far from her a considering look.

"It will make you dizzy."

"Already there, sweetheart," he said, closing his eyes for a minutes just to try and get control of his body again. Mars Navy sometimes played about with 1G, ready for a fight with Earth, and the Marine Corps routinely trained in it, but he was just a pilot. He could take higher gravity than this, but only for short periods of time, and only while juiced to the gills. Being here, straight after chasing Eros that pushed the crew of the Roci to almost 20G, meant that every part of him ached.

"It's more that everything feels really heavy right about now." An understatement. "And the sky... well, that's a sight, admittedly."

"I'm a healer not a bartender."

If ordinarily such a statement from Kash would have been a snarl, now it was positively gentle as he began an examination of her wounds. Because if, in battle, he dispensed magical healing like the machine in the stairwell did beverages, when they had the time, he preferred to be a true healer rather than a combat medic. That meant assessing damage and pain, being aware of lingering psychic trauma from injuries that his patient might not. Little known to lay folk, it was entirely possible for a patient to psychically refuse magically healing if they couldn't let go of the injury.

That wouldn't be a problem with Vex'ahlia, as much as it might be with her brother who carried his guilt like stab wounds. No, she'd feel it in dreams or memories, and if Kash would never be her chosen confidante, it was still good to know.

As he reached for his symbol, Kash glanced around. Too many people in the lobby. Way too many. But Vex wasn't going to move without Vax and Hot Dog was too delirious for his legs to work. So.

Quietly as he could, which wasn't quiet at all, considering the way the spell worked, Kash chanted the words of Heal and used gesture to direct the Life energy toward the worst of her wounds. After, for good measure, he cast a Cure Wounds, repeating the incantation three times in quick succession to strengthen the spell.

Less than a minute later, she had only scrapes and mild bruises that would give her mind a place to fix the trauma of the encounter. And Kash let the words he'd been sitting on spill out in an urgent, pained rush, "Z? Is she... okay?" Since if she was here, she'd have found him already.

"Plenty of it. And anything else you prefer to drink." Yasmeen inclined her head toward the cafe. "If you'd prefer to start there than with your room key, the details are easier to take over a bellyful."

"Is there anything besides meat that you don't like or are allergic to?" Ignis did fantastic things with vegetables. But there was always peanut butter and jelly, bagels and cream cheese. Cereal, and the like. Plus no one would object to him having dessert for lunch and dinner the next few days, if he wanted it.

Fenris considered this for a second and then said, "I suspect it would be advisable for me to bathe before meeting anyone else." And wash the blood off of his armor as well.

"I don't think so." At least, he couldn't remember swelling up or being sick or anything. And it was a good idea to limit pickiness as much as possible, especially when you were turning down a whole food group. "It's just I have a lot of friends who're animals. So I can't eat them. Everything else is fine."

Vex had some healing spells, she even had some she could've called on now if she hadn't been so focused on getting back to her brother, but they were a bandage, good in a pinch or until they could get back to a cleric. Kash was healer, and she let the healing energy wash over her, grateful for all of it.

Once he was done, she was flashing him a smile when he asked about Zahra.

"She isn't with you?" Like that, Vex was back to worried about the friends she hadn't found here yet, and how much worse would it be for Kash worrying about Zahra. She pulled him into a hug, expecting he'd grumble about the affection and getting wet, but if he had to ask about Zahra, he needed a hug.

"Last we saw you both was Emon, after the Thordak battle. And she was fine, darling. Perfect. Not a scratch on her... for some reason."

Vax'ildan took Percy's reassurance for what it seemed to be, sharing a nod with him before watching Kashaw heal his sister. No sooner had the cleric restored her than she was smiling and fretting and reassuring everyone else in turn. He was a bit surprised she'd gone so far as to hug Kash, but the deft grasping to regain her composure was Vex all over.

"So you remember when we got around to gutting Thordak," he raised his voice for Vex. "Which is the last thing I remember doing before I showed up here. And Percy remembers facing off with Raishan." He glanced back at Percy, to see if he had that right. But where would that put Vex, compared to them?

"Well, yes I can handle them, but I'd much prefer tiny house spiders and not the ones bigger than I am you find out in the wild. The tiny ones can be rather cute. The ones in caves and ruins and the like are...well, not." Merrill wrinkled her nose, very much not wanting to think about spiders. She wouldn't mind a Varterral though. Those were lovely when they behaved.

"Not at all, what is it?"

At the sound of water Anders went to peek over her shoulder, watching her work the taps. Those would be very useful and his kitten would forever have water, he wondered if the larger ones were for bathing. He could get behind that. "A bit more cave-like in here though, not that I'm complaining."

"You should see mine. It's very lovely." Though also a tower, but she wasn't going to get into that if he was going to be touchy about her trying to be considerate.

"I'm told you can't actually change anything and it'll just revert back to what it is now if you do."

"So, just for instance, if I wrote all over the walls or tied to repaint it would return to this?" He motioned around himself. That would be handy as well, if he had a resurgence of his hypergraphia and wrote on the walls it wouldn't be up long enough for him to be ashamed of later. Perhaps this place wasn't so terrible after all.

"Okay." Regina shared a kind-eyed smile with the boy. "I'll be right back."

Possibly not right back, since Regina was plausibly the world's worst cook. (Not quite that bad. Henry had survived his childhood, but that's what frozen food was for.) She'd need to find Ignis to see what might suit a skinny energetic vegetarian kid of indeterminate age.

"Ignis?"

"You'd be surprised how many of us turn up bleeding," Yasmeen replied, but steered them toward the front desk.

"Unless I miss my guess, you'll need a few explanations after you talk to the Innkeeper." And because she was bored and he was touchy and wore a sword, she reckoned, "I'll wait."

"Knowing me, I would likely get lost." He genuinely smiled at the idea of him getting lost only a few feet from the Inn. His sense of direction wasn't terrible but his luck was. He reached up and gently scratched his cat under the chin, glad to hear her purr and know that she was still relatively fine despite the trip they apparently took.

He turned his eyes back to her. "So are we here for a reason or has it been decided we all just need some sort of holiday? Though if this is supposed to be a holiday I have to say the pinks aren't exactly soothing."

Ignis was, as usual, found in the kitchen. Sometimes he ventured out of it, on arrival days, but this time he had not. "Ms. Mills. What can I help with?"

Ah. Right. That. She'd tried to forget about that. "I think so," she said, going to sit on the edge of the bed. If Anders could be comfortable here, she wouldn't judge it. He was much nicer when he was happy or as close to it as he ever got without being too much again.

Although she had't stood on ceremony since the Forest, Regina found a certain comfort in Ignis's formality with her. It meant she didn't have to try to negotiate the awkward social space between service staff and friend.

"Thank you, Ignis. We've had a young boy arrive, vegetarian, but extremely energetic. He's hungry, and I'm hoping you'll have some good idea what to feed him."

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[GP/EP] Check-In Day

Re: locked to Percy, Vax, eventually Kash

Re: locked to Percy, Vax, eventually Kash

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Re: Alex Kamal - Assigned threads

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