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: Assigned Threads

[st_abby]

It wasn't until later that Vax came around to see what newcomers had found their way to checking in. He noticed the built, scruffy fellow with the voice talking to Kashaw first, because how could you not? And he did watch that with amusement, for a few moments. But it was the other he saw off in one corner by himself - young, sad, shaken - that he turned to meet first.

"Hello," he started small, in a soft voice he'd been told sounded vaguely 'British'. The half-elf all in black was somehow both contemporary and not at once. He had jeans and hooded shirt, paired with medieval boots, a silvery belt in the shape of a snake, and skinny beaded braids run through his long hair. "You're one of the new arrivals, yeah?" His eyes were dark, but kind.

Re: Assigned Threads

[st_randedinwinter]

While Liz had told Bradley that there were people here that weren't quite human, he didn't think he believed her until he was faced with some guy with pointed ears. Maybe it's just some body modification or make-up.

"Yeah, I'm new." He answered, eyes drifting over the man. "...are you an Elf?"

Caleb liked Lord of the Rings enough he had to endure watching them over and over again so he had seen Elves in media.

Re: Assigned Threads

[st_abby]

Vax tensed just slightly, very much like he'd been insulted out of the blue. But he managed to keep most of it off of his mug. It wasn't this boy's fault, anymore than anybody else here had the slightest to do with Exandrian elves being major dicks.

"Father was," Vax admitted, to get that bit over with and not confuse the new arrival too much on the point. "That's how I've got an elven name - I'm Vax'ildan. But my mother was human, and she taught me and my sister everything that's most important in life." He cocked his head slightly, looking over the younger man. "Are you human?" It was a bit of a cheeky turn-around, but a relevant question at the Inn, actually.

Re: Assigned Threads

[st_randedinwinter]

"Uh, yeah, I am." He answered. So this guy is a... Half Elf? Caleb would really like it here. "I'm Brad. This place is... Nothing like home at all. It's not even the same season."

He looked tired and fatigued. The hypothermia still lingered within him.

Re: Assigned Threads

[st_abby]

Vax nodded slowly, though his attention was more for how wrung-out the boy looked than what he'd said. Knock him over with a feather.

"Are you-" It felt terribly stupid to ask if he was 'alright.' He wasn't, of course, not after having landed here. "Are you hurt? Ill or injured? We've got healers and such here."

Re: Assigned Threads

[st_randedinwinter]

"I'm just, uh," he said with a slow blink. "Tired. Didn't sleep a lot over the passed two days."

Brad rubbed on of his arms. He was still in his winter jacket and toque. He wasn't ready to tell anyone about what happened with him, his brother, and his dad.

Re: Assigned Threads

[st_abby]

Exhausted, more like.

"There's a room for you, if you want to rest, and there's food and drink available." He thought of offering to Lay Hands on the boy, but that probably wouldn't sound quite right to someone tired and wary, especially if magic was unusual to them.

Vax gestured to a pair of empty chairs set at a table instead. "You could sit, at least. We don't have a whole lot in the way of explanations, but if you've questions you want answered, I can try."

Re: Assigned Threads

[st_randedinwinter]

When Bradley's eyes saw the chairs, he suddenly felt a strong desire to sit again. He nodded and slipped into a chair. His shoulders slouched like standing had been hard.

"I keep thinking if I don't check in then maybe I'll just be sent home," He said after a moment.

Re: Assigned Threads

[st_abby]

Vax slid smoothly into the seat across from him. "It takes time, for it to sink in." He didn't blame the boy. It took a lot of doing to accept you were trapped in some other world, and a lot of things - anger, sadness, frustration, confusion - often went along with that. "What were you doing, before you found yourself here?"

Re: Assigned Threads

[st_randedinwinter]

"I, um..." He trailed off, looking down at the table top.

He thought about the cold and his father and Caleb. Bradley took a breath.

"Driving away from something. With my brother Caleb." He finally said. "I really hope it's true we're not missed because... Well, he needs me."

Re: Assigned Threads

[st_abby]

Vax stared at him for a moment, as the other stared at the table. He couldn't help but be struck by how much he identified with fending for yourself at a young age with a sibling in tow.

"Best as we can figure, us being here is like... Making a copy of a key," he tried to think of how to explain. A copy of a key you pressed into wax to save yourself some trouble later. "The life you remember from home still goes on, and that other self keeps on doing what you would've done there on your behalf. We're one or the other, the key or the copy. No one seems to notice that there might be another you out there somewhere. Does that help at all?"

Re: Assigned Threads

[st_randedinwinter]

He listened and tried to follow. A copy. Like somehow there are two of me...

"Yeah, actually." He said with a nod. "As long as I'm there, or someone like me anyways, then Caleb will be safe and that's all that really matters."

Re: Assigned Threads

[st_abby]

"I'm sure that other-Brad is taking very good care of him right about now." He didn't even have to grown-up-lie to say it. From the stories of where and whens Vox Machina had shared, no one seemed able to notice at all when one of them had ended up at the Inn.

"As for you, you're safe for now. This place is more boring than not. There are all manner of strange people, and we get up to the same bickering as most people do, though there's rarely real trouble. We've got to entertain ourselves, is the biggest concern. But there's not much cause for real worry when all of our basic needs are being met."

Re: Assigned Threads

[st_randedinwinter]

Brad is put somewhat at ease from Vex's words about back home. If there was really nothing he could do about it right now, then he would have to hold onto the idea that someone else, or another 'him' was helping Caleb.

"I met someone here who said they go to school here to pass the time," he commented. "...Do you teach here?"

Re: Assigned Threads

[st_abby]

Vax blinked as the question caught him between the eyes. "What? Me?" He gave a sheepish sort of sideways-smirk. "That's never gone over well," he muttered to himself. He'd fucked it up badly with Kynan, though the boy got around to something good for him eventually. He shouldn't have had to go through everything with Ripley, and that was Vax's fault if it was anybody's.

"No, I'm afraid anything I could teach wouldn't be much useful here. Unless you've always secretly wanted to grow herbs and vegetables?"

Re: Assigned Threads

[st_randedinwinter]

Brad's eyebrows lifted. Vegetables?

"Uh... no. I'm not really into gardening." He said. "Plus it's like winter for so long where I'm from gardening is kind of a summer only thing."

And for old people.

Re: Assigned Threads

[st_abby]

Vax gave a nod, and looked rather satisfied with that answer. Because how many teen boys wanted to be fucking gardeners? He certainly wasn't about to ask if Brad wouldn't rather learn how to kill people.

"Leave it to us old folks then," Vax put it with some amusement. He could guess at how stuffy and boring it sounded to someone Brad's age without anybody having told him so. "Are you from 'Earth?' Most people here seem to be."

Re: Assigned Threads

[st_randedinwinter]

"Yeah," He affirmed with a nod. "I'm from a place called Sudbury in Canada..... but I guess you probably haven't heard of either."

I never thought I'd be answering a question like 'are you from Earth?'

"Where are you from?" He asked.

Re: Assigned Threads

[st_abby]

"Not so much," Vax agreed. "We call our world Exandria, where I'm from. My friends and I have traveled all over, but we mostly come from a kingdom called Tal'Dorei, the capital city of Emon. ...Which all probably sounds as silly to you as Kahl-ee-Fornea sounds to me."

Re: Assigned Threads

[st_randedinwinter]

Bradley smiled at his strange pronunciation of California.

"I guess I never thought how names of places sound weird before," he said, amused. "Your place sound cool."

Sort of like the fantasy movies. Brad thought better than to bring that up to Vax.

"Was it hard to adjust to the inn?" He asked. "Other than being stuck here suddenly, obviously."

Re: Assigned Threads

[st_abby]

"There's much more advanced stuff here than I was used to," Vax agreed. "Electrified lights, phones, teevees - even the indoor plumbing took some getting used to."

Re: Assigned Threads

[st_randedinwinter]

"I can't even imagine being without phones and tvs." He said. Now I know what it's like without plumbing though... "Some of this stuff looks kind of old to me... like the tv in the bar. Looks like it's straight out of the 90s"

Re: Assigned Threads

[st_abby]

Vax somehow doubted the boy meant the 790's, PD.

"I can't even imagine having had them my whole life - of having theatre in your very own room whenever you want to watch it, or being able to instantly capture portraits of people as real as life to look at later. What an age to be alive!"

Re: Assigned Threads

[st_randedinwinter]

Brad smiled and then laughed at Vax's obvious excitement. He had never thought about it.

"I guess it's kind of something no one really thinks about," He said. "My mom always jokes about how when she was my age she actually had to go to a library."

Brad had never stepped foot into a library unless it was the school's library and the whole class was going there for an assignment.

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."