strangetrip | [GP] All we can do is learn to swim

Grief is like the ocean; it comes on waves ebbing and flowing. Sometimes the water is calm, and sometimes it is overwhelming. All we can do is learn to swim. - Vicki Harrison

"You're sure?" Regina already knew the answer but demanding that Sam tell her what she already knew satisfied something petty in her. Or maybe just something hurt that hoped he'd have a different answer than her locator spell had already provided.

"Yeah." Sam half-rolled his eyes at her as he leaned across the pink bar counter to grab bottles of beer from the Silver Bar ice bin -- probably the results of Rebekah's last work-effort at the Inn -- for himself and his newly arrived companion.

Briefly, Regina considered burning a hole in the seat of his jeans, but it wouldn't bring Rebekah or any of the absent ones back. Instead, she took refuge in straightening her A-line and walking around the stylish counter Sam lay across like he was surfing the waves of grief. She took down a bottle of pointlessly pricey champagne, and then found the precise cut-crystal glasses Rebekah and Miss Fisher had preferred for their afternoon indulgences. She poured herself a glass and one for the person who dared her openly bitter expression.

"So who all are we missing?" they both said at once, glared at each other and sighed. They both knew the answers, in their own way and for their own reasons. And neither of them wanted to say.

Rebekah Mikaelson. Henry Winchester. Jack Robinson. Phryne Fisher. Dorothy Williams. Angua von Uberwald. Jaime Vegas. Harry Dresden. Lydia Martin. Raleigh Becket. Yasmeen. Joanna Beauchamp. Constance Bonacieux D'Artagnan. Lindsey McDonald.

"Grief is like the ocean," Sam clearly quoted from some fucking where, and Regina tuned him out until he added, "All we can do is learn to swim. Rebekah told me that."

Now Regina rolled her eyes; they weren't friends. "Shut up, Sam."

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If he hadn't known it was an illusion, he wouldn't have thought to suspect it. Since illusions were only as good as the memory or the imagination of the crafter, it told Kash a lot about Molly. Or at least about Molly and fortune cookies.

"Can't see the point in a cookie that doesn't taste good. Hell," he muttered as the vodka ice-burned its way to his gut. "If all they want is platitudes, I can givem' that." Which, he probably could, but his would be like 'the inevitability of the universe is always shit'.

That made Molly grin, for the first time since learning Harry left, a true grin. "Yeah? What kind of platitudes would you put in one?" The fortune cookie dissipated and she poured them both another shot. She was feeling a lot more relaxed and a lot less depressed. It would change in the morning, but right now, Molly went with it.

If he hadn't had as much to drink as he had, Kash might have had pithier things to say. Or not. But he did have, "'The inevitability of the universe is always shit,'" and "'Life needs things to live,'" compliments of Percival. And maybe, "Don't take life advice from a cookie."

Molly laughed at the last one especially. "Now, see, those are fortunes that I'd enjoy getting in the cookie. Real, like one of my favorite sayings, do or do not, there is no try."

"Hang around Vox Machina long enough, and you'll hear plenty of 'real'," Kash told her, smiling a little, and brain a little more mellow from the alcohol.

"Vox Machina?" Molly asked him curiously. "Is that a friend of yours?" She assumed so, or at least someone familiar.

Kash blinked. "Friends from home. They call themselves Vox Machina." Apparently he'd had more to drink than he'd realized if he was talking about Vox Machina. Especially if he was freely calling them friends. "You might've met some of them. Vax, emo bird boy? Vex is his prettier twin. Pike. Gnome. Real sweetheart with white hair." He reasoned she probably hadn't met Percy since Kash hardly ever saw him himself.

Vax, emo bird boy. Molly rolled that around in her alcohol fogged brain. There was something familiar about that. Not the wording, but the description. She thought back to her arrival, she'd seen him since then but... "Emo, bird boy!" She chuckled, "I met him when I arrived, I thought he was from my world and here to sign an Accord."

She was still going to call Lea's ears pointies when she got back. The irritated expression on her face when Molly called them that would be worth it. Though the payback would likely be a bitch.

"Why would you think that?" Kash was grinning even through the question. Her delight in his description of Vax felt like some kind of vindication. "I mean, if it were Vex, I could see that. But Vax? He thinks diplomacy is hitting a guy with one dagger instead of three."

Molly snickered at that, that had a familiar ring to it. "It wasn't that I thought he was a diplomat, I thought he was Sidhe from my world until I realized he wasn't and I thought only powerful magic could have brought me here when I was with Lea - uh Winter Court Fae - so I thought there was a gathering of signers and I got sucked into it. When he looked at me like he had no clue was I was talking about I knew he wasn't connected to that kind of magic."

Then the emo bird had kicked in, but in his defense, alcohol had been involved and he'd been missing his twin.

'Shee.' 'Winter Court.' Ah, 'Fey.'

"Ah. Yeah. Syngorn's in the Feywild. Where the twins' father's from. Their mother was human. They can be pretty touchy about that." A small, strange half-smile twisted up his face. "Guess he was pretty diplomatic then."

Vax was a good guy. He should probably tell him that. Nah.

"He was." Molly agreed with a grin and another shot of vodka. "It also helped that I was bitching about the Inn. We had a common bitchfest. Diplomacy helps when you have something in common to bitch about." She snickered, "see that would be good to put in a fortune cookie, too."

[GP] All we can do is learn to swim

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