strangetrip | [EP] open your hands if you want to be held

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[EP] open your hands if you want to be held

Out beyond the greenhouse and the gardens, in the orchards she'd nurtured with love, and magic, and friends, Regina had stripped her usual business casual battle armor in favor of a softer mien. She rested beneath the shade of a tree, inhabited by an elemental named Manzanita, who understood nothing of fashion, everything of fornication and fertility, and laughed like a babbling brook or syrup sap at the words she didn't understand from the fashion magazines Regina read to her beneath her boughs.

At her feet or more occasionally her head, a puppy-now-nearly-a-dog sprawled, his tail thumping when his mistress laughed unusually loudly. From time to time, inexplicably, a black kitten-cat herded by a spirit Russian Blue appeared to torment the dog. Behind them in a magically constructed paddock, a mare grazed, keeping quiet watch over the antics, and less quiet watch over the picnic basket of fresh fruit (apples, and plums, and pears, and berries and cherries, oh my) on a picnic blanket at Regina's side.

The conversation that was more of a communion took a turn for the sly when Manzanita detected thoughts of a certain wolf in her not-a-druid's mind. It wasn't words, but a suggestion, perhaps Regina might leave this issue of outer-bark wholly behind. Head back, laughing, Regina (briefly, magically) shed her clothes for a light dusting of leaves. (~~Please, let me down, Mama. I'll be good.~~)

On second thought, with a flip of her wrists to replace her clothes, she murmured, "Smelling like forest is freedom enough."

[ooc: Slow because shit is real, but hit me til I scream. Find Regina in the orchards she planted at any time during this post. Avoid seeing her naked if your fireball tolerance is low. Otherwise, fireball forecast: low. Title quote: Rumi.]

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Rocket didn’t even bother to dodge. She hadn’t aimed, and that plus the nickname was some nice immediate proof that she actually did know him. “Nah, I’ waitin’ ‘til I’m really bored t’even start that. An’ what, you don’t think you outrank garbage? I promise, you do at least seventy percent’a the time.”

"Seventy? My. I'm moving up in the world," Regina replied in a lightly scathing tone. "In Gotham, I believe it was forty-five."

In truth, she had no idea. Throwing insults at each other was as therapeutic as fireballs. They'd done it infrequently but with great enthusiasm.

"I'd offer you wine, but as I recall, that's a 'humie' vintage. Stale beer?"

“True, Gotham had better garbage. That’s prob’ly definitely why.” Count on Regina to pick up same as ever. It was comforting, as well as the normal level of relaxing in just being mean for fun. ”Any kind’a beer’s just piss pretendin’ not to be. Distilled or nothin’, Fire lady.”

"Probably definitely. How exceptionally precise you are." She reached into her picnic basket and pulled out a fresh peach. "Start with this," she told him, flinging it indelicately toward his mangy little mug. As she touched it, she laced it with bourbon with a very quick summons.

Even before he caught it or didn't, she was using a gesture spell to summon a bottle of whiskey for him.

Rocket caught the peach and bit into it; why not? If Regina wanted him dead, she wouldn’t poison fruit. She’d yank his heart and crush it or something. Respect! When it wasn’t just a piece of fruit? Even more respect!

Plus, it was just a good flavor combination. Mmmm. “I will start with this! You bein’ nice for a reason?”

"Lulling you into a false sense of security, obviously." And because it was too nice a day to bother with being a wicked bitch.

It was not, however, too nice a day to chuck the bottle of whiskey now in her hand at Rocket's head. It wouldn't hit him and he didn't need her being too nice.

Rocket only genuinely minded things being thrown at him when he didn’t actually want the things in question, and in that sense the whiskey bottle was at least as good as the peach. Even if he had to hold the fruit in his mouth, twist a little to get his head out of the way, and catch the bottle with both hands. Once that was done, though, he balanced his new prize on the branch next to him, against the trunk of the tree.

“I knew you were in cahoots with this place! You got anything to do with the kid who tried to ‘Mister’ me?” And yes, he only took the peach out of his mouth a few words in, so a significant part of the accusation of cahooting was muffled. Rocket figured Regina was the sort to fucking hate someone trying to talk to her with a mouth full of food.

Edited 2018-05-27 18:25 (UTC)

While Regina did hate being spoken to from around a mouthful of food, you didn't raise two boys without getting used to it. And since he'd actually taken the peach out of his mouth, she decided Rocket would be more annoyed if she thanked him for it than called him out on having done it in the first place.

"Thank you for not continuing to speak with your mouth full. Your manners have improved since Gotham, too, I see."

For herself, she poured a glass of a new sparkling red that had come in with the last secret delivery, and then relaxed back onto her elbows. "Come on, Furface, keep up. When did Roland ever call you 'Mister'? Parker's his own conspiracy."

Edited 2018-05-27 19:05 (UTC)

"Hey, I always knew'em. Just never actually give a shit about'em." Rocket flicked an ear, acknowledging the point for her side. Sometimes you just had to give it up, and an extended argument about manners was always going to be Regina's win because she'd have gotten him to argue about fucking manners.

"An' excuse me for thinkin' the queen who fries flyin' monkey ass," and yanks hearts, but that was too close to actual personal to say when neither of them was actual mad, "might get a head start on collectin' minions? You keep up! 'Cause it feels like you're givin' me a head start here."

"On collecting minions? Don't be absurd."

Regina actually laughed at that--until she considered the teenagers' so-apparent tendency to latch on to anyone who would teach them something. For a few heartbeats, she consider the possibility that she ought to try to protect them, but...Rocket, for all their 'enmity' was good enough for her own daughter. So she dismissed it with a gesture that--paired with a spell--would have banished him from her sight, but absent the spell was simply a gesture.

"I have Caroline." More of a partner than a minion, but she didn't need to tell Rocket that. "You're already history and you don't know it."

"Oh man, are you already that old? Losin' your memory an' shit?" Rocket shook his head mock-mournfully, then took another bite of bourbon peach. "I lived at Sanctuary, queenie. I know how to handle Caroline!" Sometimes it was 'avoid her', sometimes it was 'offer to build something'.

"Ah, but this Caroline doesn't know how to handle you," Regina pointed out almost gleefully. Almost. Because not being remembered was a real and legitimate wound, and for people like the two of them, it ran too deep. "And I've had a year to win her over."

He seemed to be enjoying the bourbon peach enough that she reached into the basket and laced one for herself.

"Yeah, but here's the thing, fire lady. I don't exactly like it, but I got a fuckin' assload'a cute an' fluffy." Provided he kept his implants and connectors out of sight, of course, but that was part of what the clothes were for. "I don't gotta start from zero unless I wanna." And honestly, Regina knew he liked to start from negative numbers. But the point still stood.

"Here's the thing, furball," Regina echoed him, mocking slightly. "I don't have to start from zero either." She had blood that Caroline could drink, although she couldn't remember if Rocket knew Caroline was a vampire, and Caroline wouldn't know. But more importantly, "I can take hearts and control people with them."

Not that she would anymore, and she figured Rocket knew it.

"I'll take my chances." Not only would Regina not be doing that (her first response to him wanting to learn that was 'I won't' rather than the 'I couldn't if I wanted to' it ended up), it was probably like killing. It'd get too messy and too complicated for such a little place.

But it was mostly the she-wouldn't. "Looks like we got ourselves some mutually-assured whatever. I don't wanna do cute, you don't wanna evil queen it up. So I guess it's probably okay to see you an' shit."

"Mmm." Regina lingered over her glass, taking several consecutive sips before she deigned to reply. "As long as Snow's happy to see you, I'm happy enough to have you here," was what she finally said.

And it was a good few beats before she added, "And I suppose it's tolerable to see you, too."

[fade?]

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[EP] open your hands if you want to be held

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