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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Helping the elves in the alienage in Kirkwall had mostly turned into trying to relocate as many of them as possible out of Kirkwall. Merrill wasn't a healer. She couldn't do a whole lot for the injured other than attempt to set up traps.

What she could do was come and go freely from the city. No one stopped The Champion's companions and hardly anyone thought to keep a Dalish elf in the city in the first place.

She'd gone back to Ferelden, a thing she'd never thought she'd ever do after the blight drove her clan out. She could survive on her own. It was easier with a clan, of course, with bright aravels slipping through the forests to scare off those who might think to do them harm if they were on their own.

Merrill didn't have a clan any longer, though. She was crossing the Frostbacks on the way back from staying with some accommodating Avvar when the sky tore itself open. She stared up at the sky, dread filling her heart, slithering down her spine and coiling around her throat. It wasn't safe to scream. Fen'Harel she thought as she tried to melt back into the frost flecked foliage. No one else was powerful enough or cruel enough to do something like this to the world.

Her fingers curled around the amulet at her chest as she hoped for Sylaise's blessing that somehow she would learn to heal.

She closed her eyes tightly. The gods rarely listened, but she would pray for Dirthamen to let her move as swift and silently as a secret, for Andruil to keep the beasts of the forest from her and for Falon'Din to be a friend to whoever lost their lives in this new disaster.

The wind shifted her hair, getting suddenly warmer. She could feel the sun on her face.

Merrill opened her large green eyes and- None of this was at all familiar. The sky was blue and whole and she could hear the happy little trilling of birds somewhere. She let go of her amulet and followed the road up to the nearest building. She couldn't read the sign, but it seemed rather welcoming, didn't it?

The air conditioner inside the lobby of the Madonna Inn kicks on with a sad, straining noise that sounds much like the squall of a baby Teedo. The noise is thankfully short-lived, but Rey makes a mental note to take a look at it later. She's got important things to do today -- namely, helping with the newcomers.

Rey glances up at the lobby clock, then over at the double doors at the entrance, briefly weighing the pros and cons of staying indoors or going out. The debate is short-lived; she charges past the doors and out into the heat of the midday sun -- just in time to catch sight of a figure making their way towards the hotel from the desert.

Rey holds a hand to her brow, her eyes narrowing as they make their approach. Brown hair, facial markings? Or are they tattoos? Rey's not certain. But she's certain of one thing: she's never seen this woman before.

"Hey!" Rey says, lifting her hand way from her face to greet Merrill with a wave as the elf narrows the distance between them. "You're new here, aren't you? I'm Rey."

And once Merrill is standing within arm's reach, Rey extends a hand to her to shake.

Merrill had, admittedly, been a bit worried about everything she was seeing being frankly illegible. She'd wanted to sit and study the strange writing, but she did need water and a few answers more than likely.

"Oh good, hello!" she said, smiling at the young woman who came to greet her. She almost bowed a little out of far too many years of being, well, Dalish. She remembered the way things were done in the city. This wasn't really a city. Was it? It certainly didn't look like one. Oh, perhaps some of it was underground? Oh, but the writing wasn't dwarven at all. "I was getting worried no one else would be here or if they were I wouldn't be able to understand them." She shook Rey's hand. "I'm Merrill and...and this is?" she gestured a little with her other hand to the rather large building before realizing the handshake was going on a little longer than strictly necessary.

Rey is relieved to find that the elf (that's what they called themselves, right?) is more friendly than the last newcomer she met. She surveys Merrill with a discerning eye -- the markings are definitely tattoos, she decides -- before she remembers to smile. Most people didn't react well to suddenly being transported here. The least she could do is try and appear reassuring.

Especially when the news she's about to deliver isn't exactly good news.

"This is the Madonna Inn," she says. "And there's plenty of others here, too. We all showed up here, much like you did and so far, none of us have been able to figure out how to get back from where we came from."

Rey presses her lips together pensively, waiting for a shift in Merrill's expression so she'd know how best to respond.

Merrill's brows furrowed and with them, her vallaslin. "Well, that's not good," she said. Not that she was really sure at all what she was going to do about the holes in the sky. She felt she should be doing something. It'd just all felt so much larger than her and-

She looked around again. "It's not very green, is it?" she said, more to herself than anything and when she looked to the horizon she couldn't see anything at all that resembled the black city. Had her gods saved her somehow anyway? This wasn't the Fade. It wasn't anywhere.

The elf turned a little away from Rey and cast fireball against the strange, flat black rock well enough away not to harm anyone of course. Not dead then and definitely not the fade. You couldn't cast anything in the fade, not really. "I haven't got a lot of money for a room," she said, "You said this was an inn, right?"

Rey's mouth drops, and Merrill, unfortunately, won't get her answer. Not quite yet.

"You just made fire--" Rey's mouth is still hanging open, unable to press forth the rest of her sentence. Her eyes dart from the rock to the Merrill.

Finally, somehow, she manages to close her mouth, swallow, and collect herself.

"You can do magic," she says more calmly now. That was what other people called it. Some thought the Force was magic too, but Rey wasn't so sure.

Merrill's large eyes blinked a couple times. "Oh..." She averted her gaze and cleared her throat. "Yes, yes I can. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to frighten you."

Her gaze was sheepish as she looked up at Rey once more. "I promise, I'm not in the business of hurting people. You don't have to be afraid of me." That was the usual reaction she got. Between her vallaslin and the staff on her back, most humans took off running. It was rather sad, actually.

Rey shakes her head. "You didn't frighten me," she says, trying to sound reassuring. "You just caught me off-guard."

Rey extends an arm towards the rock, her palm opened. The rock trembles where it sits for a half-second before snapping smoothly up and into Rey's hand.

"There's lots of people who can do magic here," Rey says, opening her hand to show Merrill the rock. "...so you don't have to worry about anyone reacting poorly." She knows from talking to Kitty that some people came from worlds where people with abilities weren't exactly treated well. She's not sure if it's the same for Merrill, but it's better to address it now than risk having her be on-edge the whole time she's here.

"Oh, that's useful," Merrill said, eyes lighting up some at Rey's particular power. She could do something similar herself, though she needed something living to do that.

"There's always someone who reacts poorly," Merrill said. "If not to the magic, then to the ears. I'm used to it." City elves were docile little things to the shem. The Dalish were nightmares in the forests to them. She knew. She didn't much like that she knew, but she knew.

"How much are the rooms here?" she asked, looking at her pouch. She'd spent too much on healing potions during her trip. It was- She really needed to learn to make those herself.

Rey rather thinks that Merrill's ears are pretty, but she doesn't say anything about it.

"The rooms are free," Rey says, directing a finger towards the lobby's double doors. "If you go inside there, in the lobby, there should be a man manning the front desk who will give you a key. There's no swapping rooms, so don't bother asking."

A beat.

"Don't bother asking anything," she says. "None of the hotel workers really have answers for anything."

That seemed rather odd, but Merrill wasn't of a mind to question it. She'd interrogate the staff later. Gently. She was sure someone had some kind of answer to something.

She nodded a little. "Would you... Well, I'd hate to ask more of you when you've been so helpful already, but would you mind coming with me?" Pride wasn't her downfall. Curiosity, yes, but not pride. Still, it seemed kind of shameful to admit that she couldn't read anything written around here. Then again, perhaps Rey couldn't either?

Rey is surprised by the request -- and the surprise registers on her face, if only for a second; her lips quickly form a light smile.

"Sure," she says. "Let's go, then."

Rey leads the way to the lobby, adjusting her pace to match Merrill's own. Once they're inside, she steps towards the front desk. The innkeeper is standing there, just as he always is; Rey can't remember a time when she's come down here that he hasn't been.

"Hello," Rey says, resting her hands on the counter. "We've got a newcomer."

"Hello," he greets them, tonelessly.

Rey glances over at Merrill. "If you give him your name, he should give you your key."

"Ah, yes, hello," Merrill said, smiling charmingly at the odd looking man. She wondered if he was tranquil. That might make a great deal of sense. The poor dear.

"My name is Merrill and I-"

"Room 184," the man said, sliding her a small paper envelope with a square of something smooth and slick inside and more writing she couldn't read.

"Right. Yes, and where is that? And what is this?"

"Your key, miss," he said, and pointed in a direction that Merrill had no idea where it was going.

The mage took a deep breath. "Well, thank you all the same." She turned and looked to her companion. "Are you up for a small adventure?" She fiddled with the little rectangle somewhat nervously.

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