strangetrip | Check-In: Not-Mother Hen

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Check-In: Not-Mother Hen

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.]

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"I did," she said with an airy sigh. "All used up I'm afraid. And all that's left is a touch of wanderlust, and a really remarkable arse."

Don't judge, she'd focused hard during that last regeneration to get a bum quite so shapely as hers turned out.

"I'd be happy to confirm it if you wanted to join me on this side of the bar."

"I don't need confirmation," she said with a laugh as she picked up her pitcher of Sangria and moved around the bar making sure he'd get a good look before joining him on one of the adjacent stools.

Thor gives her ass an appreciative, appraising look before and after she sits down.

"Confirmed," he says, before moving onto yet another question. "How long have you been here?"

"Thank you," she tipped her head in a show of false modesty. "I've been here almost 18 months."

She didn't feel like it had been as long as that, and she didn't think of it that often.

"18 months," Thor repeats, curling his fingers around the bottle. He can't even possibly fathom being here that long. And yet, here River is, alive and thriving.

Or at least is quite good at faking it.

"Do you have any family here?" he asks. "A wife? A husband?"

"Not here," she answered with a smile, maybe because of the question. Maybe because of how he'd asked it but there was that touch of melancholy in her eyes that flickered briefly whenever she thought of the Doctor.

Remembered that the next time she saw him may well be the last.

"He's off traveling somewhere and I'm here. Not an uncommon experience though the location is different."

"Sounds... complicated," Thor says. It's the truth. "If that's the golden standard here, what do people do here? Simply live without companionship until--"

Thor pauses there and instead asks another question:

"People do return home here?"

This was actually the least complicated part of it. but she didn't tell him that.

"Companionship?" She arched a brow at him, amused. "Some people have left, I assume they went home though I have no actual proof of that. And companionship is easy enough to find if you want it."

"I was just curious," he says to that. "Long-distance relationships can be tough. Tougher for humans, I think, than Asgardians. I think that just comes with the whole lifespan thing."

One year was an eternity for humans with their teeny lifespans.

"Are you assuming I'm human?" She sipped her drink and smiled coyly. "Actually any number of the people here aren't actually human though I have no first hand knowledge of if they have extended life spans or not. I know you're too much of a gentleman to ask a lady her age but let's say I don't look a day over 900."

Thor tips his bottle towards her. "Forgive me for the assumption," he says. "Most people mistake me for human, too. 1500, give or take. You sort-of stop keeping track after 500."

"You do," she agreed. Plus with time travel, and planets with different lengths of relative time that reckoned a year it got even more complicated. "And no need apologize for the assumption. My parents were human."

At least on Midgard, most people were aware he wasn't human. But that was because he had a reputation on Earth. He wasn't nearly as famous outside of the Nine Realms. Sakaar had been a nasty reminder of that. Not that that particular nugget of information would have changed anything, except perhaps the amount of money Valkyrie could have earned off his sale.

"Typically, people don't change species where I come from," Thor remarks. "This related to the whole--" He spins his finger around. "--time vortex thing?"

"Clever boy," she nodded. "There's a race in my universe that evolved over generations with direct contact with the time vortex, my evolution was just... sped up a bit."

Thor grins at that.

"You have any special qualities other than longevity?"

"Well you've seen my arse," she grinned. And she did have other special qualities, hard to kill, strong, expert TARDIS pilot, chameleon regardless of era (or not she never was good at blending but she adapated well), quick witted and audacious among other things.

"The rest you'll have to find out on your own."

"Well, I look forward to discovering your other..." What's a good word here. "...qualities," he supplies.

"I should probably go find my room, though," he says, shoving off the barstool. "I've got a key, a room number, and not much else."

She looked forward to it too and her smile confirmed it.

"Which room, I can at least send you away with a full bottle and directions."

Thor digs around in his pockets and finds his key. A keychain with his door number is helpfully emblazoned on the pink faux leather strap in gold characters.

Thor looks down at it.

"174," he reads aloud, then he looks over at River.

"That's a coincidence," she leaned over the bar to select a bottle of scotch and slid it across the bar to him before picking up the still mostly full pitcher of sangria. "I'm in 169, though I warn you the public spaces can be tame compared to the decorative styles of some of the rooms."

Thor takes the bottle in one hand and Stormbreaker in the other.

"After Sakaar, I'm sure it can't be much worse," he says. Sakaar was pretty gaudy on the outside. Colors everywhere. "I take it your room is colorful?"

"My room isn't gaudy so much as it is very.. blue." TARDIS blue, actually. It was weirdly like living in a room where someone had turned the TARDIS inside out but she didn't say that because he wouldn't understand. "And the bed is round, which is generally only an issue if one's companion is quite tall."

She eyed him up and down with an arched brow.

"And there is a very large mirror placed in an altogether interesting spot beside the bed."

Thor's brows furrow slightly at this strangely very detailed description of her room. Thor was pretty sure he knew what she was alluding to, but didn't want to risk a misunderstanding.

That would be awkward.

"Are you propositioning me?" he asks.

"If you'd like," she laughed, and gestured that she'd show him the way to his building, if not his room. "I'm not opposed to the idea, though you've had a bit of a shock with your arrival so I can walk you to your room and when you've recovered I'll only be a few doors down if you decide to take me up on the offer."

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