strangetrip | [GP / EP] Welcome to the Madonna Inn Expanded Public Library

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[GP / EP] Welcome to the Madonna Inn Expanded Public Library

Freedom from her bonds had given Illyana more than freedom of movement. It had returned to her the use of her magik and her ability to teleport. These abilities had, in turn, allowed her to finish making ready the library for public use. It was less about collecting books and media from around the premises (and some from Limbo, or donated collections harvested from the Otherworlds) and arranging shelving and seating, most of which had been relatively easily done. It was more a matter of laying the appropriate wards, and negotiating the finer points of the old-fashioned catalog and check-out system, which included odd donated items such as sporting equipment and electronic devices available for rental. Xavin's espresso machine counter necessitated a mini-bar refrigerator, glass-domed cake stands for assorted pastries brought in from the kitchen, and various cafe sundries.

Repurposed from what had been the 'Garden Room,' the library space with its high wooden ceilings, chandeliers, and landscape murals over busy floral carpet still looked somewhat like a touristy banquet hall, yet the area was now also highly saturated with layered magic. The hodgepodge collection of random books and so on were fiercely protected by these magics. When needed and as possible, worn volumes had been restored. The books could not be damaged nor marred from here on out, at least not by coffee spills nor page-tearing or inconsiderate attempts at margin notation. Nor would they leave the boundaries of the library area without proper dispensation, simply stopping mid-air and dropping should the attempt be made at the threshold. Ask at the Desk for Assistance With These Items, prompted the signs on several glass display cases featuring certain perhaps unsettling curiosities within - books in arcane languages, skulls from indeterminate creatures, and artifacts such as a green glowing cube suspended on a chain. At said desk, a gleaming service bell sat waiting, should the staff be needed and not clearly present.

Illyana finished affixing the large engraved plaque to the wall beside the double-doors, and then returned to attend the newly opened library with little fanfare:

Madonna Inn Expanded Public Library

Established ~01.25.2018 Earthly Gregorian Calendar

Open All Hours

Volunteer Staff on Duty as Schedules Allow

Classes & Tutoring for Most Subjects Available Upon Request

Donations Encouraged

Disruptive Patrons Will Be Zealously Evicted

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Snow's hand stilled in midair over the kitten's back. She could get her name back?

But then, what would that actually gain her? She had never actually been that distressed to lose it so much as hated the reasons that Mrs. H had given her this new name in the first place. It had been an insult, a curse. One that she's survived. She had not had an identity back when she'd been Miss H. She had been a doll. She would be dressed up, posed, moved about, and then put back in her cabinet again.

What did she want with that?

Eventually, she shook her head. "That girl's dead. And fuck if I want anything of my father's anyway."

"Yeah." Sometimes he wondered why he kept Vesh's name, so he could understand not wanting back a name given to him by someone he hated. But mostly he thought of his name as an advertisement and warning. Or full disclosure. As much as he hated Vesh, she was a part of him. "I get it."

"My father wasn't the worst man," Snow admitted with a shrug. "But he was useless. Small. If he wasn't taking something, he felt empty."

"He wasn't the best man either."

There was a hardness to his voice beneath the wry mirroring. Snow's story made him angry like Zahra's did. The people who should've taken care of her fucked her over. Yeah, he was probably angry at his mother and father in retrospect, too, but since he'd been swaddled in gold and taken from them at birth, it was hard to be pissed at figments in his imagination.

"No," she agreed easily. "Only worthwhile thing he ever did for me was give me my gun." Snow felt very little in general about her father. He didn't interest her. There was a time he could have won her, had he ever held her close and given her a kiss. But Mr. H never gave his daughter kisses, only junk. And a gun.

He'd wondered where the weapon came from that she held to it so tightly but it had never seemed right to him to ask. Still he was glad to know it and he nodded. "I never met mine."

"The experience is overrated," Snow assured him, since it didn't sound like he had any particular hang ups about it.

"I was taken from my mother when I was born to become a cleric," Kash told her, no particular bitterness about that. His early life had been good. The Brothers had been kind and had taught him well. It wasn't until he learned what Vesh was that it all went to hell. "Family was a mystery to me until I met...Zahra. So far, I'm not seeing much to recommend the biological version."

"I never knew my mother," Snow said with a shrug. She could not say it entirely without pain, but it didn't cut the way it used to. "But I wish I could have."

"Me too." It was more Snow meeting her mother he was thinking of, but he did wish he'd had a chance to know his own. If only to know if she'd cared when they took him away. "You deserved better."

Snow ducked her head and mumbled something inane, turning her attention to the cat.

A small smile tugged at the corner of his mouth when she ducked away like that. It was cute. "How does Regina fit in?"

She's the queen in the story. She tried to kill another version of me. "We met in Gotham, before we were here. She adopted me."

Kash didn't know what Gotham was, but he wasn't the sort to ask questions about things that didn't matter to him. What mattered to him was Snow. "How old were you?"

"Seventeen." She shrugged and just... kept going. "I ran away from home. Tried to find my mother's people. But then I wound up in Gotham instead. World like this, 'cept a whole city."

Seventeen. Two years older than he'd been when Vesh had come and destroyed everything. He had been alone on the road when he was seventeen also. Much easier for him than a beautiful young girl alone. "Regina found you when you arrived there?"

That there were other worlds like this one was interesting, but it was Lillith and de Rolo who could make something of that information. Not him, and he didn't pursue it.

Snow shook her head. That had been Roy who had found her, but... "I met Regina later. It was an Indian man took me in. Henry Standing Bear. I'd never met another Indian before."

"Indian," Kash said, and he didn't sound as mystified as he had when she tried to tell him about white and Red the last time. "Tribes living on this same continent whose land was taken and culture stripped by the whites from another continent. Right?"

Snow nodded shyly. "Yes. Bear was Cheyenne. He..." her voice got small, "he taught me not to be ashamed."

"Sounds like someone worth holding onto." Not a difficult call to make. Anyone Snow cared about that much (including her prickly, damn near impossible mama) would be worth the effort.

Kash looked across the table at her and felt a tightness in his chest that needed words. "You okay?" I missed you.

"I'm okay." I missed you, too.

Well, it wasn't entirely true. Snow still missed Sansa a lot, but whether or not she willed it, the wound was healing. When she hadn't been looking, when she hadn't been thinking about it, the hole had been closing.

"I was thinking tomorrow for a walk-through of the horses." Are you up for the company?

He hadn't been, but now that he saw her and she was speaking in complete sentences again, the horses would benefit from the attention. And he had missed her company.

"Come by whenever," Snow answered. "I'll prolly be out there." Yes.

"Yeah. I'll see what comes up," Kash told her. See you, then.

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[GP / EP] Welcome to the Madonna Inn Expanded Public Library

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