strangetrip | Missing (OTA)

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Missing (OTA)

Liz stood in the middle of the lobby with a quiet, panicked look on her face. She turned around a second time, surveying the scene around her, but the second pass didn't help any. She ran a hand through her hair and then headed for one of the couches. She pulled back the cushions, digging her hand into the crevice of the gaudy plush decor and when her hand emerged empty, she felt her chest tighten.

Liz's journal was missing.

She thought she had brought it back to the room yesterday after studying in the cafe, but this morning when she went to review her notes from the day before, she had discovered that the familiar book she had so many things in was gone. She had checked the library, the restaurant, the cafe, even the kitchen itself. It had to be somewhere, right?

(ooc: Find her pretty much anywhere. Also! Feel free, if your character would so choose, to find the journal and read all or some of it because I am a cruel mistress.)

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She paused and then gave a nod. She knew she messed up. "I know... I, um, this is the first time I lost it like that..." Maybe she was getting to complacent here.

Regina gave her a piercing look. "Do you always treat suggestions as scoldings?" It could just be Regina. She did tend to have that affect on people.

Maybe it was mostly because it was Regina, but Liz would never say that. Not really. "I guess I just really feel like I messed up big time, you know?"

Her response left Regina at odds with herself. On the one hand, it was a child's journal with literally nothing of interest in it for anyone but the child. On the other, Regina's own diary had gotten a man killed; never mind that she had been behind the killing.

"If this is 'messing up big time', what do you when you break someone's heart?"

She paused. "Um.." She blinked and felt her chest tighten. "What.. do you mean? I've never..." She pressed her lips together and frowned. Even Kyle, who had been upset about them breaking up, hadn't been heartbroken. He had said he always sort of expected it to happen at some point.

"Hypothetically." All at once, Regina remembered how liberating it had been not to give a single shred for mousy little children like this. The urge to be cruel was rising in a way that...honestly, somewhat alarmed her.

She made a point to gentle her voice and her gaze when she elaborated, "Possibly a bad example, but it does demonstrate my point. You're overreacting pretty spectacularly, and trust me, I would know."

Liz felt herself pause again. There was some damaging information about who Peter was, and who Max was - both of which, if they ever got into the wrong hands, could go wrong. Still, out of everywhere, the Inn was probably the safest place to lose it.

"I know it's not like... life or death, here, but it's personal and... some of it's embarrassing." She glanced to the side and shrugged.

Regina sighed, eyes falling closed in frustration. When they opened again, her expression was unreadable. "Do you like apples?"

It wasn't a non-answer. It was a delayed answer. She needed to establish some kind of stable ground for the child if she wanted her to listen.

The question seemed random, but Liz nodded. "Yes. I like apples"

"Walk with me." It wasn't a question. Regina clearly expected to be followed and set off toward her apple trees.

Liz paused for a moment, then followed, trying to figure out where this was going. Regina always seemed to be rather serious, but also had a lot of experience.

At the base of Manzanita's tree, Regina stopped. She placed a hand on the trunk and sent a greeting to the elemental. Then she reached up into the lower boughs to find an apple near to ripeness, and blew a gentle breath, soft green with magic, toward it.

In seconds, it was perfect, and Regina picked it. She offered it to Liz, hand out, and met her gaze, beginning, "When I was your age, my only friends were my horse, the stableboy, and the apple tree we used to meet under..."

It was hard not to think of the story of the Evil Queen and Snow White as Liz reached out tentatively for the apple. She listened, though, to Regina's words. She held the apple, trying to process what had just happened. Magic, she knew, but she was still getting used to all the sorts of magic at the inn.

Regina knew perfectly well the obvious resonances. In part, she had done it on purpose. And in part, it was a means of centering herself so she didn't lose her temper.

"And within a year, my mother had murdered the stableboy, married me off to her old flame whose wife she'd also murdered, made of me a stepmother and a queen, and all I had left was the tree." She didn't pause, because she sought no pity or understanding from this silly if kind-hearted child. Already she had learned that girls like her, like Mary Margaret, only caused her problems in the end. "My every thought, every hope, every dream went into my journal."

Now she paused. What Liz would make of that, would tell her what should come next.

She listened with lips pressed together and a slight concerned expression on her face. Regina's life sounded... Unpleasant. How her mother could be so cruel, she didn't know.

"Did it... Make you feel better, writing everything down?"

"Rarely. But a diary is rarely a comforting confidant. It's too much of a mirror." She allowed herself a small only slightly bitter laugh for that.

"My husband had no interest in me, his daughter was a brat, and so, it was inevitable, that eventually I would look to find a companion." Let the girl believe, if she would, that she had sought another love, when what she had sought was an excuse. It made the point of the story no less potent. If anything, more. "And, of course, I would write of my new friend in my journal.

"Listen, well, and do not miss my point when I say: my husband found and read the book, and in short order, another man was dead." How he had come to be so and which were not for Liz.

She frowned deeply. It was, of course, pretty much her deepest fear. That someone bad would find her diary and used it against the people she loved.

"I'm really sorry." There was no fixing it, of course, but Liz wished Regina didn't have to go through that.

Regina only barely suppressed a roll of her eyes. "My experiences were not my point." And neither did she want misplaced sympathy for a murder she'd all but commissioned.

"What I mean for you to understand is that by contrast to my experience, no one is dead or in danger of dying, on the one hand, so your distress is extreme. And on the other hand, if you possess information that could be dangerous, either don't write it down, or doing a better job protecting the information. With a lock, for example."

At the inn, it was probably harmless. She didn't think there was anyone who would use information in her journal against someone. Peter seemed pretty open about who he was and no one here really cared about Max or the others.

Liz gave a slow nod. "You're right... I'm sorry." Especially compared to her story, Liz's worries seemed stupid.

Now Regina sighed openly. "Liz. Child. Save your apologies for when you're asked for one or you're certain one is owed. If you apologize for every last thing, it will come to be less meaningful than the boy crying 'wolf'."

Her eyes closed briefly and she shook her head, then held out her hand. "Give the journal to me. I'll need a drop of your blood, too."

Her eyes widened. "My.. blood?" Though she did tentatively hold out her journal to Regina.

"I'm a sorceress not a scientist." Regina sighed and took the journal. "I can't make a biometric scanner but I can make a blood ward that no one but you can get past."

"Oh, um, okay." How she was going to give her blood, she didn't know. She looked around a little, then back to to Regina. She looked at her hand, then took a small breath. She brought her index finger up to her mouth and bit it. She winced, but she managed to draw blood on the first try. She exhaled as her finger left her mouth.

"If I opened it for someone to read would they be able to?"

"I could have used a thorn, Liz." In her own orchard, asking a tree to sprout a thorn could be done in a blink of an eye. Instead, she plucked a leaf and held it out. "Smear it on here, please.

"And yes. The ward will prevent anyone from opening the journal. But if you open it, they'll be able to read."

Liz blushed a little, embarrassed, but took the leaf and smeared her blood on it before handing it back. This was the first time, other than when she was healed by Pike or that man by the pool, that Liz was really close to magic.

"Thank you... I know you don't have to do this."

Missing (OTA)

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