Check-In: Not-Mother Hen

[st_alksthroughwalls]

Kitty sat at the bar with a cup of coffee and her notebook, watching the 'welcoming committee' make themselves busy. Liz was here, as she'd promised Kitty she would be and Kitty gave her a quick smile of encouragement.

One of the worst things about Check-In Days was that you never knew whether it'd be a whole long day of no one arriving, one spectacular fall from the ceiling and dropping dead after another, or anything in between. It made it hard to know what to do with yourself. After awhile, you got used to it and just kept on with whatever you'd do otherwise, and know that if you didn't step up for a new arrival, someone else would. But for someone not used to treating it like a responsibility to be here, especially someone with Liz's anxious need to be perfect at it, Check-In Day could be emotionally exhausting.

So Kitty made sure to have milk warmed for hot cocoa and her plans for the obstacle course handy in case Liz needed something to do with herself. Otherwise, she was working on a modification of Cerebro to see if she could start detecting new arrivals.


[ooc: Regular check-in day gathering post. If you want Kitty, ping me.]

Comments

Re: Hurley and Brad

[st_illkindalost]

Was that the first time the kid's smiled since he's got here?

"All the time," Hurley says. "But wishing for it's not going to change anything. Life's not gonna stop just 'cause I want it to."

Hurley takes one of the tokens in hand and taps it against the table. "But that stuff? It's not easy to do. I still freak out all the time."

Re: Brad & Sunny

[st_igmatized]

But it had hit a nerve. And so Sunny didn't ask. In fact she very deliberately went in another direction entirely.

"That was the first spell I ever learned to cast with my knife," she said. "My friend Chichi did it for me the very first time I saw it done. Classical. It was to help me cross the bridge into Leopard Knocks without the... thing living in the river from dragging me down. It almost did anyway. It's older than time, it can do what it likes."

Re: Assigned Threads

[st_abby]

"Knowing how to read is still something of an accomplishment in a lot of places in Exandria," Vax pointed out. "Some people go their whole lives without seeing the inside of a library or a real school."

Which was true, but... He winced at himself, a bit, hearing how preachy it sounded. There was nothing like speaking to people half his age to make him feel like an old curmudgeon.

"Not to say libraries can't be unspeakably boring," he hastened to add. "Just because it's written down doesn't mean it's interesting or even useful."

Re: Hurley and Brad

[st_randedinwinter]

"What do you mean, freak out?" He asked.

Bradley couldn't picture an adult freaking out except for the way his dad did. Bradley didn't think most people freaked out the same way as his dad did.

Re: Hurley and Brad

[st_illkindalost]

"Uh, well." Hurley hesitates. Not because he doesn't think it's OK to talk to a kid about this, but because he's pretty sure Bradley is gonna think that his life is even weirder than smoke monsters and the Others.

Which is probably true, but then there was explaining it all.

"So I won the lotto," he says. "Mega Lotto Jackpot. I did it with some numbers this guy in the hospital kept repeating over and over again. And after I won the lotto, all these bad things started happening to basically everyone and everything around me. So I fired the two cooks that worked for me. Gave them severance. Right in the middle of dinner."

It had been nice severance, but... still, that was how Hurley freaked out that time.

Re: Assigned Threads

[st_randedinwinter]

Even though Bradley knew it was a lecture, he also could concede a valid point.

"Guess I'm just used to computers. I'll have to unlearn that here, I guess." He said with a small smile.

Re: Brad & Sunny

[st_randedinwinter]

"There's a.. 'thing' that lives in the river?" Brad asked with wide eyes. "Like... a magical thing? A troll or... something?"

Re: Hurley and Brad

[st_randedinwinter]

"Oh..." He said, thoughtful. "...but you let them go because bad things were probably going to happen to them too, right?"

Brad considered it more.

"I think you did the right thing." He concluded. "The right thing, even."

Re: Hurley and Brad

[st_illkindalost]

"Yeah, I mean, I wasn't stingy with the severance either." He'd basically dropped a stack of 100s right in front of them. "I'm glad you think it was right, though. My ma didn't think so, but she and my dad thought I was freaking out about nothing. It wasn't like I thought up being cursed out of thin air."

Re: Liz/Kitty

[st_alksthroughwalls]

"Did you offer him something warm to drink?" It wasn't a criticism, just a question with a suggestion attached for her next adventure in greeting newcomers. "I usually try to find them a booth to sit down so they can have their back against a wall and see the entrances, especially if they look scared."

Re: Kitty & Brad

[st_alksthroughwalls]

Kitty nodded sympathetically and gestured him to a quiet, cozy spot in one of the booths by the counter.

"What I usually tell people is that it doesn't much matter whether it's real or not. If you treat it like it isn't, it'll make you crazy. If you treat it like it is, it's weird, but you learn to deal with it." She offered a smile and a shrug. "I don't know how much that helps, though."

Re: Liz/Kitty

[st_hotflashes]

"He, um... He didn't seem to want to stay and talk?" But now Liz felt guilty. Like maybe she should have done more to help him want to talk more or stay around or...something. She frowned. "...I did point you out to him.. if he wanted to talk to an adult."

Re: Liz/Kitty

[st_alksthroughwalls]

"It's all right. That's why we make sure there are at least two of us to talk to the new people." Kitty gave Liz a quick hug. "Sometimes they won't listen to the first person, or the second. I'll check in on him."

Re: Liz/Kitty

[st_hotflashes]

"Will you... let me know if he's okay?" She'd kick herself if he wasn't and she just let him go.

Re: Liz/Kitty

[st_alksthroughwalls]

"He'll be fine, Liz." This tendency of Liz to put everything on herself was beyond ridiculous. "And if he isn't, it won't be anything you did or didn't do. Remember that. Whatever he's coming from, and showing up here, that's what's upsetting him, and there's not very much any of us can do about that."

Re: Liz/Kitty

[st_hotflashes]

Liz nodded. She did know that, but it didn't stop her from feeling bad. "I guess you're right..." Still. "Thank you, by the way. For... keeping an eye on me." She wasn't oblivious, anyways.

Re: Brad & Sunny

[st_igmatized]

Sunny smiled, a touch mischievous, but she wasn't lying. "It's not something that someone without magic would likely encounter, and it would make short work of a troll. But, yes. And that was probably one of the gentler parts of my early days practicing magic."

Re: Liz/Kitty

[st_alksthroughwalls]

"Just doing my job," Kitty replied. "Speaking of, do you want anything from the kitchen? I've got to go grab Regina's lunch."

Re: Liz/Kitty

[st_hotflashes]

She shook her head, but smiled. "No, thank you... I'll just stay here in case anyone else shows up."

Re: Liz/Kitty

[st_alksthroughwalls]

[ooc: and wrap!]

Re: Assigned Threads

[st_abby]

"You never know what might be useful again later." Vax didn't know from computers at all, but he'd had them explained to him. He still wasn't sure he really understood them, but it wasn't a whole lot stranger than magic he supposed.

"We get to travel to other places once in a while - we call them 'Otherworlds.' None of them has been home to any of us yet, and it's only for a few weeks. But I'm sure some of them have got computers."

Re: Assigned Threads

[st_randedinwinter]

"That's not what I meant about unlearn..." Brad said, but smiled. He nodded. "I think computers is sort of like riding a bike. You always remember how to use one... I've basically been around them all my life."

Re: Brad & Sunny

[st_randedinwinter]

"Wow... that sounds... really intense." He said. "And dangerous... did you choose to do all that stuff?"

Re: Kitty & Brad

[st_randedinwinter]

"I guess," He said unhelpfully. "I guess if I thought it wasn't real then nothing would matter and that would.. suck a lot more."

Re: Kitty & Brad

[st_alksthroughwalls]

Kitty smiled a little more brightly at that. "Good attitude." He was going to be all right. "Let me go grab you something to eat and then we can talk some more, okay?"