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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"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."

Rey shakes her head. "No, don't apologize. It's just that... no one I've really talked to has told me what happened right before they arrived before. I thought maybe if there was some similarity, some connection, maybe we'd be able to figure out what brought us here."

"I asked Dirthamen, he's one of our gods, to make me as swift and silent as a secret and for Falon'Din to be a friend to those who'd- Gods, so many had to've died. There's stories of them crossing between worlds, though really it's just the waking world and the Beyond, I don't think... I mean it's certainly a possibility." There weren't any ruins to study here, no keepers to ask about any lore she hadn't been taught.

"What happened to you right before you arrived?"

"I was actually looking for someone," Rey says, looking down at her hands. "You remember what I showed you earlier, with the rock? We call it the Force... and there's a lot you can do with it beyond that. The person I was looking for was going to teach me how to use it."

A beat.

"At least, I was hoping he would. It looked as though we'd landed on the right planet, but when I stepped off the platform everything had turned to sand, and I -- I was here instead of there."

The elf frowned. "This all a big mystery isn't it?" she sighed. She chewed on her lower lip. "What do you mean by the right planet?"

"Oh," Rey says, looking up. "You don't have space travel where you come from?" Rey had spoken to a few people who didn't have space travel -- and some that did, but not on the same level as she did.

"You mean like...to the stars?" she asked, "Gods, no, not even remotely. How would you get up that high in the first place? Is it wonderful? It sounds wonderful."

How does she even begin to explain this?

"There are these big, contained ships that are propelled into space by force. It takes a lot of force. A lot," Rey says, thinking of the Ghtroc 690, and all her attempts to get it spaceready a few years ago.

"But you're right -- it is wonderful," she confirms. "I spent almost all my life on the same planet -- a desert planet that's not all that different from here, and when I first saw what other planets were like... it was like nothing I imagined." Rey shakes her head. "And seeing stars up close is even better than seeing them from the ground."

She smiles.

"I wish you could see it," she says. "Aside from my friends... space is probably what I miss most."

"I miss my friends too," Merrill said, sighing. "It's been years now. Ever since the war started we haven't seen a lot of each other. We- Some of us keep in contact, of course, letters mostly sometimes a visit, but it's not quite the same." She never expected to hear from Fenris or Sebastian unless they decided they had absolutely no other choice. Or Anders really, not directly. Hawke would mention him from time to time so she had an idea of how he was, but... well, she always knew how Anders felt about her.

"I miss the ruins," she said, "Not that I've been away from home for all that long but while I've been busy there hasn't been time to...to really study lately. They're so beautiful. Maybe somehow one day you can show me space and I can show you some elvhen ruins. That would be nice, don't you think?"

Rey nods. It would be nice.

"What were your ruins like?" The only ruins Rey really knew were those left behind by war -- the husked-out remains of old starships on Jakku and Kaz's Cantina after the First Order attacked. Were Merrill's ruins the same?

"Old and stone, mostly, full of sadness and forgotten things," Merrill said softly. "So many memories linger in the stone, in the trees. But they're beautiful, really. And they've been there for so long, centuries that the pain isn't so near to us anymore. It's still there. It still hurts, but... They're places to be quiet and learn if you can, not really to fear. Aside from the spiders, of course."

"Spiders I can handle," Rey says. She's not afraid of spiders; they've thankfully never bothered her.

"Do you mind if I ask a personal question?" All the questions she's asked so far are probably personal questions, but this one might be a touch more personal than what she's asked so far.

"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?"

"The markings on your face," Rey says, gesturing to where they'd be on her own face. "Do they mean anything?"

"Vallaslin," she said, not at all offended by the question. She got it often enough, but usually by city elves who didn't understand why hers weren't the normal ones they saw. "They're a rite of passage to adulthood among my people." With or without a clan, no one was ever going to see her as anything but Dalish.

"Usually they're to honor our gods, to ask for strength and guidance in our lives if there happens to be one we're particularly inclined to."

Rey's questions come in rapid succession:

"Do you all have the same tattoos?" she asks, and then: "Did it hurt?"

"No, there's eight usual designs and some variations for the gods we honor," and none for Fen'Harel as it should be. "Keepers and their firsts and seconds get different ones if they wish. Others can too, it's just not done often. The Dalish are a very traditional people most of the time."

She took a deep breath. "It's a big day of quiet celebration. The Keeper, that's the name we use for the leaders of our clans, someone who keeps both our sacred history and our people safe, they light some incense and spend hours hand tapping the designs onto whoever is passing into adulthood. It's...it's very painful, but you can't flinch or cry out or the whole thing stops and you have to wait a year to try again to prove that you're ready to handle the pain adulthood brings. Once it's all over, there's a great feast and celebration." It was enough detail for the shemlan, all they ever needed to know.

Rey leans forward as Merrill explains, her eyes wide-eyed with interest. She's never had any gods or traditions of her own, so she can't help but be fascinated when others describe their own.

"So what god is yours?" she asks.

Merrill shook her head. "I was First of the Sabrae clan," she said, "mine don't represent anyone in particular. I... I meditated for a long time before I came up with them." She blushed a little.

"You designed them?"

Rey frequently has a hard time hiding her emotions; ever since she was small, she has always worn her heart on her sleeve. In this moment, it's so incredibly clear that she's equal parts admiring and impressed.

"What exactly did you do as your clan's First?" she asks next. "Did it mean you were a powerful magician?"

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