strangetrip | [GP/EP] Check-in Day

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[GP/EP] Check-in Day

It was a musical day at the Madonna Inn, both inside and out. Curnen had taken her usual place up on the roof and was singing charms to the sky to keep any wanderers from getting lost (though that part of it was not immediately obvious). Unrelated to that, Sunny was on the dance floor in the bar, summoning songs of her own with her knife to keep her moving before she went to do her shift at the library later. It was one of those days where if she thought about it too hard she’d start thinking about that empty bed in her shitty room and the person she most wanted to be there.

This of course eventually seeped into her magic. She knew better. Maybe she’d even wanted that to happen.

Because just once, between different pop hits and dance beats came a rather unexpected French love song. She sighed and rolled her eyes, but the exasperation didn’t last. Before the lyrics started up she was waltzing. By herself and not caring how it might have looked. And for those three and a half minutes, she dared let herself hope for the slimmest chance that Orlu might come through that door.

She didn’t let herself hope too hard, though. There was admitting to feeling things and there was setting yourself up for certain disappointment. She’d lived too long with disappointment to do that to herself.

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He was almost about to turn the awkward hanging handshake into a hair swipe when Sunny finally shook his hand. Phew! Close one

"You can call me Quill too," He added, "If Star-Lord's a bit too cool for you. I understand. It's a lot to take in."

Quill was other oblivious to Sunny's disposition.

"What's your job here?" He asked. "I noticed people who live here do jobs."

Oh good God in hell.

"Okay." Sunny shook her head. "I had a teacher who adopted the title 'Defender of Frogs and All Things Natural,' I guess I can deal with this. But I will call a strange white man anything with 'lord' in it over my dead body." Not implications she wanted.

She hooked her thumbs in the pockets of her jeans. "As for my job, I'm one of the librarians here. There are three of us in all."

"Uh," he said in response to the white man part. "...I'm like, totally friends with a green person, a blue person - well, more of a blue-grey I guess. And a raccoon. He talks. It's a thing. Anyways, that's not the point."

What was my point?

Quill shrugged.

"librarians are cool." He said, sticking with that, "I used to date a librarian once. She kept telling me I was too loud."

Sunny simultaneously 'Oh he did not just' and took note of the different reference point. Then again, if he grew up during the early days of gaming, at best he'd gotten the colorblind version of how not to be racist anyway. In any case, she tried to swallow her indignation.

"Then it sounds like you know a wide enough range of cultures to be familiar with unfortunate implications. But moving on.

"I'm heading to the library now if you want to take a look at our games. It's not a big collection, but it's there."

"Really?" He asks with interest. "Sweet! Yeah, okay. Show me the way. Do you know what consoles you have? You have a Commodore 64?"

Quill was hoping there were a few of his favorites. He enjoyed most of the consoles but Atari and Commodore 64 were boss.

Sunny smiled; her familiarity with that name came strictly through gaming channels on YouTube, but she did at least know what that was. "You may have hoped too high with that one. I know it's not as know your roots as some might like, but we've got NES and SNES."

"Hold. The. Phone." Quill said dramatically, stopped, and looked at Sunny. "SNES?"

"Yes," Sunny said simply, not sure how to read that reaction. Other than making a note to herself that Quill had a fairly punchable face.

For another day. Punching new people was terrible manners.

"This is probably the best place ever," He said. "Aside from Disneyland, of course."

And this was where Sunny elected to just turn with a jerk of her head and walk upstairs to the space where the Inn's small library was. Everybody processed the fact that they were stuck here in different ways and at different rates. This way just made her want to hit him really, really hard.

"It's not much," she said softly as she stepped into the room. "But feel free to have a look around."

When Quill saw the gaming 'section', his eye lit up like a child in a candy store. He should be concerned about where he was, but there was so much weird stuff in his life lately it was easy to take this for what it was at the moment.

"Dude!" He picked up a gameboy. "I loved this as a kid!"

Quill looked to Sunny and added, "Thanks. This is - this library is great, and it's not something I usually say about a place filled with mostly books."

Sunny had to laugh. "We aim to please. Or at least placate everyone enough that they don't go stir crazy and kill each other."

"Can I take this for a while?" He asked as he picked up a Gameboy.

He wanted to take a page out of Groot's handbook and play a game for a while instead of dealing with his issues.

Avoidance. Denial. Well, it was a coping mechanism, and one she could understand. "Yes. If you're going to take it from the library, I need to do a little magic to let it leave, but yes."

"Like, magic magic?" He asked, eyes filled with wonder. "Alright. Magic away!."

This is so cool

"What that means for me," she said carefully, "is I'm about to pull out a knife. It's a necessary tool and I'm not going to use it to cut you. I'm telling you this so you won't panic and shoot me."

"Alright, that's fair." He said. "I know at least one woman who wouldn't do the courtesy."

He missed Gamora like no other. He frowned for a fraction of a millisecond.

"I like not getting shot," Sunny said wryly as she pulled her juju knife seemingly from nowhere. But she was true to her word. The knife was deathly sharp, yes, but not a weapon. If anything, it was more like a wand, which she pointed at the Gameboy complete with short incantation to complete the charm.

When she finished, she lowered the knife slowly to her side. "That should do it. Have fun."

He had no idea what she did to the Gameboy as he inspected it over. Quill determined it seemed to be the same device.

Quill shrugged, then smiled.

"Thanks, Sunny." He grinned, the winked because that was what charming men did. "See you around."

Quill headed for the door.

Sunny nodded and slipped the knife away as it had come, disappearing into seemingly nowhere. "See you around," she said. As for herself, she had to check on the magical displays and get some reshelving done.

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