strangetrip | [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 am being mauled," Vax called back to point out - mostly with drool and strong-but-affectionate headbutts. "And you know I love Trinket, sister dear, but Kash probably has a point. He is a bit big for indoors, and people won't know he's safe yet." A huge armored bear was far from harmless, but safe enough unless someone posed a threat to Vex.

He scratched the big brown bear's ruff with both hands, burying his face into that thick fur he'd used as a pillow so often, not long ago. The bear was so much a part of his sister that even his low rumbling and animal smell was a reassurance that yes, she had come back to him. "Uncle missed you too," he promised the beast.

For Vex, it wasn't really the convenience of being able to carry Trinket with her that made her necklace so useful. It was all the ways it could keep him safe that made it valuable. Including tucking him away when townsfolk might get scared and do something they'd regret.

"That'd be good, wouldn't it?" she asked Trinket. "Big bowl of ale and drying off in a nice sunny spot."

Trinket's big head nodded, and when Vex held out the necklace again, he let himself be sucked in for the walk through the inn to the outdoor bar.

"You too, Uncle Vax," she teased, slinging an arm around his neck to pull him close, her other around Percy's waist.

Months. Damn.

It was a measure of how much Percy had missed Vex that he didn't pull away. Even for her, he was not always comfortable with being touched. But his gun-hand was free and that, for now, was enough.

"We'll have to find you one of the swimming costumes the women here wear. You'll rather like them I think." Percy certainly would.

"He means he'll 'rather' like them," Kash supplied with a little smirk. He probably would too, if silently, and from a distance. What? He'd never send Vex'ahlia wasn't fucking hot. Just that Keyleth was. "Clothes here are scraps of cloth, when they're not optional."

He lifted his chin at Vax. "Ran into your friend the Captain sunning herself topless earlier."

Vax grasped Vex's forearm and kept them comfy-close, squeezing her hello again as they walked. He still could hardly believe it, that she was here, and it wouldn't be easy to let her away from him for some time.

He mostly ignored the implications that his sister in one of those tiny sodden garments would be sexy. He'd gotten well used to the way Vex'ahlia affected people over the years Vox Machina had been traveling together. There was honestly no point in getting his hackles up every time someone hit on her or gave her a suggestive look, or he'd have no time for doing anything else. Besides, it was one of their friends as often as not - and when it wasn't, well, Vex had played that to their advantage more than a few times.

"Not a surprise really," Vax considered Kash's report, sounding more agreeable than lascivious. The Captain Corsair was lovely as a freshly sharpened blade - but he wouldn't have it in mind to take one of those to bed, either.

"Most of the women around here are brazenly liberated," Vax noted to Vex lightly. "I think you'll fit in just fine."

Percival's sense of propriety and need for privacy meant reading him took close attention for subtle clues and understatement. But Vex liked to think she wasn't the worst at putting together the clues behind what wasn't said. Add in Kash's elaboration, and Vex gave herself a new mission – find one of these swimming costumes and find out just how much an affect it had on Percy. Maybe privately at first.

But that was for later.

"'Your friend the Captain'?" she echoed instead. "Are you making brazen friends already, brother?"

"Friends who are brazen, yes, always," Vax quipped back at her. "Brazen friends, I think you know better, sister dear."

She was teasing, of course, not that he minded. Even before Keyleth, he'd never got into quite as much of that kind of trouble as she had.

Percy, for a moment, looked both suspicious and disapproving. While Yasmeen was certainly a friend who was brazen, Percy had his concerns about others of Vax's friends. But he could update Vex on that particular blonde wrinkle at another time.

"You'll like the Captain, I believe. Reminds me of Zahra in many ways, come to think of it."

She reminded Kash nothing of Z. She had none of her warmth, thoughtfulness, expansiveness, nor any of the painful darkness that had made Z who she was. The Captain had ferocity and a capacity for violence, strength and charisma, but that wasn't what made Z who she was.

Kash shrugged more or less impassively. "I wouldn't want to cross her," he allowed. "She reminds me more of Vanessa."

Brazen friends and the trouble they could bring were usually more Vex's style than Vax's, and she knew how he felt about Keyleth, but there'd been curiosity behind the teasing. She had months, apparently, to catch up on.

"Either way, she sounds delightful." The three of them knew Vex, Vanessa and Zahra. She'd leave it to them to decide how much of that was sarcasm. Some, but not as much as most might think.

Mostly all of the Zahra-or-Vanessa talk (to say nothing of Kashaw's set jaw and sad eyes) just served to make Vax think of Keyleth. At the rate they were coming through from Exandria... Well, it was probably just a matter of time before the druid turned up, wasn't it? There was just no saying when, or... How.

"There are dozens of people here, for that matter," he tried to speak to Vex's curiosity. "From all other kinds of worlds to ours. It's a one-way trap of some kind, from what we can tell. A comfortable one, at least. It's all so strange, but it's been safe enough so far." A bit... Too safe, honestly. As in, boring for long stretches with not much to do.

[GP/EP] Check-In Day

Re: locked to Percy, Vax, eventually Kash

Re: locked to Percy, Vax, eventually Kash

Re: locked to Percy, Vax, eventually Kash

Re: locked to Percy, Vax, eventually Kash

Re: locked to Percy, Vax, eventually Kash

Re: locked to Percy, Vax, eventually Kash

Re: locked to Percy, Vax, eventually Kash

Re: locked to Percy, Vax, eventually Kash

Re: locked to Percy, Vax, eventually Kash

Re: locked to Percy, Vax, eventually Kash

Re: locked to Percy, Vax, eventually Kash