[GP/EP] Check-In Day

[st_oriedqueen]

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.

Comments

[st_artrekodo]

"I see... Actually, I do know of an 'obscenely powerful entity' who would probably be able to do that. And who happens to have sort of an obsession with ancient human cultures. And your list of solutions misses the most likely motivation for it: fun. Anything to get away from the infinite boredom of being all-powerful. The... creature I'm talking about has been known on several occasion to kidnap an entire Federation ship, or some of its senior crew, merely to toy with them. He once threaten to make humanity as a whole disappear, not by killing them all, but by preventing their evolution from the dawn of time. You were only saved after captain Picard pleaded for your very existence in a mock trial... in which several other beings were present, that he described as 'organic versions of a computer simulation. Ring any bell?"

[st_alksthroughwalls]

"Mmm, no, never heard anything like that." At least, not on television. "The entities I'm aware of with that kind of power might toy with us for fun, but they wouldn't find cooping us up in a time-bounded space with nothing to do and no apparent threats particularly entertaining." And the Phoenix Force, or Galactus would find it so far beneath them it would never occur to them.

"I guess Loki might try something like this, or the Enchantress, but they'd choose people they had a beef with or who could do something they needed." Usually, they'd just grab Dani or Jane to provoke Hel or Thor into making a move. And Loki was probably serving some Odin-imposed punishment at the moment.

[st_artrekodo]

"In my limited experience, the motivations of such powerful beings are always risky to guess. Whatever the name or the actual entity, it might do this just to have us wonder about their motivation. Or possibly to get us out of the way of some other scheme, like a storage dimension, but I'm not that important, I don't see why me, I'm not in charge, nor even an actual officer." He paused, looked at the pretty young human as the realization came down. "What do you mean, 'nothing to do'? Is trying to get out not enough, or that pointless?"

[st_alksthroughwalls]

"So far? That pointless," Kitty observed with a little shrug. "I haven't given up, but the technology and energy sources are so limited that even the things I could try can't possibly work."

He probably wasn't going to take this well, judging from the rational bent of his mind, but it was only fair to warn him, "The magic users aren't having any better luck."

[st_artrekodo]

That was a lot to process at once, and he plainly said so, raising a lack of eyebrow. "I'm no technician, but I know that time and dimensional portals require huge amounts of power. Even the biggest dilithium-powered Federation ships wouldn't have enough on their own, and they run on anti-matter conversion!". He looked around once more, feeling more depressed than ever.

"You seem to have a pretty good grasp on technology yourself", he suddenly added. "Yet you speak of magic. Do you mean, actual, supernatural magic? I always thought of it as simply a form of technology more advanced than the viewer's comprehension. In any case, if it didn't work either..."
Trapped. He was trapped all over again, more than he was on his Bajoran test-tube, more than he ever was on a space station. More than on any single planet. He used to have the entire galaxy opened before him, and now the universe was reduced to a crappy human building and a bunch of random solids as trapped as he was?

"Please keep an eye on this for me", he said to kitty as his abdomen - clothes included - suddenly swelled and opened to reveal a strange-looking... bucket? he carefully put at her feet. "It's dear to me but I can't hold it with the surveying shape I need." That said, without a care in the pocket-world for what other people might see or think, he turned into a four-winged scaly creatures, akin to a mythological dragon - if fact a pretty efficient Klingon eagle - and flew out the door and into the dusty sky.