strangetrip | [GP/EP] Check-In Day

Entry tags:

[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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

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.

Rey smiles. "Sure," she says, leading the way to the stairs. "I'm pretty sure your room's on the fourth floor. There's not a lot of rooms up there, though I think most of them are occupied already."

Rey makes her way up the stairs, glancing over at Merrill behind her. "There's maybe 50 or 60 people here already. A few people tend to show up at the beginning of the month and midway through the month. I said earlier that there's no charge for the rooms here, but we generally try to help one another out with our problems. I can fix things, so I usually tinker with things around the hotel that are broken."

"Oh, that's very high up then isn't it," she said. Above some of the trees certainly. She followed her companion up the stairs, doing her best not to get distracted by the decor. "Do people tend to come from the same places or is it all a hodge podge kind of thing?" she asked.

"They come from all over the place," Rey says. "I've only met one person who's from the same universe as me. His name's Qui-Gon. If you're lucky, you might find someone who's from the same place, too."

She offers Merrill a little smile.

"And if you don't, everyone's friendly here." A beat. "Well, almost everybody."

"There always has to be someone who's too grumpy for their own good," Merril said, winking a little at Rey. "Always feeling like they have to ruin it for everyone else 'cause they don't have it in themselves to figure out how to be happy instead of carrying around their own personal little rain cloud."

Rey's lips quirk up a little more at Merrill's response, and though she says nothing, it's clear from a glance that she agrees.

"This is it," she says, finally traversing the top of the stairs. "You should be able to just insert your key into the little slit under the handle."

Merrill took the little square piece of plastic out of the sleeve, grateful for the arrows on it when she put it into the slot. The lock beeped happily and she startled a little before taking the keycard out and opening the door.

"Oh..." she said, eyes widening as she looked inside. "Oh, Rey... Rey, it's so lovely." She held the door open but didn't go inside just yet. "Are you sure this is..." It had to be, though, hadn't it? The key worked. "There must be some kind of mistake."

Rey smiles. "No, they don't make mistakes. This is definitely your room."

Rey presses a hand against the door, opening it further. "You should go inside. This place might end up being your home for awhile."

Merrill stepped inside. Of course she did. She motioned for Rey to follow her just in case. It seemed rude not to. "I feel like I'm trespassing," she said, barely restraining a giddy sort of smile. "Like I've snuck into some Orlesian palace or something and I'm not allowed to touch anything." She ran her fingers along the back of one of the circular chairs.

"It's definitely much nicer than the alienage. Are all the rooms like this?" Immediately she was hit with a pang of loss, a want to share this with Isabela and Aveline.

"Not quite," Rey says, looking around; the rooms are locked until they're assigned, so she hasn't had a chance to see this one until now. She has to agree with Merrill's assessment -- it's really quite lovely. "All of them usually follow some sort of theme. Mine looks like a lot like a cave."

Rey traces the handrail along the curving stairs, then stops and turns to Merrill. "I'm glad you like it. Some people get here and don't like their rooms. There's no changing it permanently, though. The room will just revert to its previous form if you try to paint over it."

"I don't think I'd want to change it anyway," she said, half tempted to trot up the spiral staircase and explore more. "But that is good to know if magic gets a little out of hand." Not that she wasn't very well trained and aware of her own power, but things did still happen from time to time.

She turned and smiled brightly at Rey, forgetting for the time being the state of the world she'd just left. It was hard to think about anything at all beyond what was happening in the moment.

"Can I see your room?" She asked. "Oh wait. Is that rude. That's probably rude. I'm sorry."

"Sure," Rey says. "It's on the first floor."

Rey heads towards the door, glancing behind her to make sure Merrill's following her. "Oh, if you lose your key, don't worry; the front desk can take care of that, too."

Rey leads the way, pointing out minor and major landmarks along the way. Where friends of hers live, where the ice machine and vending machines are, where you can do your laundry when your clothes get dirty. It takes considerably longer for them to get downstairs than it did up, but it's probably good for Merrill to know all these things, especially if she's going to be here awhile.

Rey slips a hand into her pocket and pulls out her own key once they reach the door to her room. She pushes open the door, revealing a room with a rocky, craggy wall, not too much unlike that of a cave.

"This is my room," she says. Her longpole leans against her dresser; Luke's lightsaber and her blaster sit on top of it. "I know there's a lot of people who wouldn't like it, but I do."

Edited 2017-06-03 21:48 (UTC)

It was all quite overwhelming and Merrill was sure that she wouldn't be able to remember most of it. It'd taken forever to get used to Kirkwall. Kirkwall was a labyrinth and she was sure half cursed to get everyone lost in it. This place was just...different.

She ran her fingers along the cool fake stone of the wall. "It's lovely," she said. "I always quite liked caves. Well, most caves. So long as there weren't any spiders in them, they were quite lovely." And, of course, save for that incident with Tamlen, but those were ruins not caves, not really. She still rather loved ruins. There was so much history soaked deep into them.

"Did you live in a cave where you came from?" she asked, no judgement at all in her voice.

"I actually lived in the hollowed-out AT-AT," Rey says, before realizing that Merrill likely had no idea what an AT-AT was. "A metal war machine. It was left there after the Battle of Jakku."

A beat.

"I did spend a lot of time in caves, though. Sometimes I'd get caught out in the middle of a sandstorm and had to go into whatever shelter I could find."

Merrill sat cross-legged on the floor and looked up at Rey, not thinking about being proper at all. The floor was perfectly good. "My people mostly stuck to forests, but I've been to the Hissing Wastes once. No one ever stays there long." Mostly. The shem did and there were some old Tevinter ruins out there, but no shadows of her people as far as she could tell.

"The Hissing Wastes?" Rey echoes. That sounded ominous. "What's the place you're from like, exactly?"

Rey lowers herself to the floor and sits cross-legged in front of Merrill.

"Oh it's just 'called that on account of all the sand and the things there that hiss. It's not that bad, really. Very hot out there, and dangerous too I suppose, but not if you're careful."

She played a little with the hem of her tunic. "It's a bit hard to explain what it's all like. There's a little bit of everything and the Dalish aren't really from anywhere, not anymore. I lived in a city until just now. Officially. I've been trying to do my best to help the elves there since the war started, mostly it's trying to get them out of Kirkwall and into safer places. Some were willing to go join up with a few of the Dalish clans and that was nice, but most of the rest feel like they're caught between an ogre and a qunari."

Merrill sighed. "I was on my way back from visiting with people in Ferelden to see if they might be willing to help when I got here. The sky..." Her gaze went a bit distant. "The sky tore itself open in places and I don't- I don't know what happened but the next thing I knew I was here and not in the Frostbacks."

Rey is struggling to keep up with these unfamiliar terms. Dalish. Ogre. Qunari. Kirkwall. Ferelden. There's some things she can infer contextually; she's pretty sure Dalish is Merrill's race, and Kirkwall and Ferelden are places, but the rest are a mystery.

"Do you think the tear in the sky is what brought you here?" Rey asks, leaning forward slightly.

"I was praying," Merrill said, idly rubbing her finger over her sylvanwood ring. "I don't know what the tear was, but it was- Well, it was green and I know where that goes and it's not here otherwise here would be green too." No, it was Fen Harel. It had to be. She'd seen the wrath of one of the Tevinter gods up close when her clan had escaped Ferelden in the first place. It only made her more certain that hers had to be real as well.

Especially with what she'd learned about Ashabellanar after the woman had dropped such a profound hint to go looking in the first place. Not that any of her friends would've ever believed her, of course. Merrill knew. That was enough for herself. She hoped she'd meet her again one day. She had so many questions.

"I don't know. I'm sorry. Everything just happened so suddenly."

Re: Merrill - Assigned Threads

Re: Merrill - Assigned Threads

Re: Merrill - Assigned Threads

Re: Merrill - Assigned Threads

Re: Merrill - Assigned Threads

Re: Merrill - Assigned Threads

Re: Merrill - Assigned Threads

Re: Merrill - Assigned Threads

Re: Merrill - Assigned Threads

Re: Merrill - Assigned Threads

Re: Merrill - Assigned Threads

Re: Merrill - Assigned Threads

Re: Merrill - Assigned Threads

Re: Merrill - Assigned Threads

Re: Merrill - Assigned Threads

Re: Merrill - Assigned Threads

Re: Merrill - Assigned Threads

Re: Merrill - Assigned Threads

Re: Merrill - Assigned Threads

Re: Merrill - Assigned Threads

Re: Merrill - Assigned Threads

Re: Merrill - Assigned Threads

Re: Merrill - Assigned Threads

Re: Merrill - Assigned Threads

Re: Merrill - Assigned Threads