st_abby: (official_portrait)
[personal profile] st_abby
Steph asks for cake, she gets cake - and Vax gets to meet one of the Inn's most charming residents in the process.

Cake is a wonderful thing to owe people, because sometimes they'll share when you pay your debts. )
st_ereoscopic: (Default)
[personal profile] st_ereoscopic
Abby wasn't sure if the semi-regular happenings of arrivals would continue today, especially after Songrun, but just in case she made her way to the cafe. It would be the perfect spot to see the lobby if anyone new didn't make it as far as the cafe seeking answers. It also gave her lots of room to spread her "project" out.

There were bits and bobs but mostly it was a couple of tubes, lens, spring and nobs. Abby was determined to make a microscope. It might not be especially useful around the hotel but it was a comfort to her. Besides it kept her mind occupied and she was finding that, that was more important as time in the hotel went on.

Time seemed to fade around her, which usually happened when she focused on her work, and it was the protest of her back muscles that had her stretching. It was then that she noticed more people trickling into the cafe and some unfamiliar faces. Which meant it really was check in day today and she stood to greet friends she hadn't met yet. In Abby speak that was practically everyone. No one was a stranger - at least not for long.
st_arknaked: (pic#11337746)
[personal profile] st_arknaked
He was deep in the jungle when the warm humidity became cool and crisp and the dark earthy smell suddenly held a hint of salt and sea. Midnight became brighter, the sharp sliver of new moon suddenly large and ripe and more than half way to full.

It disoriented him, the wolf immersed in the hunt and the night and the man deep within who registered the shock and then the anger as he shifted back to human form and recognized where he was. The far outskirts of the world of the inn was dry and spare and seemed neverending until you found yourself dumped back where you began and he knew with the awareness of an animal that where he had been was a long way off.

And so were his pants.

He swore viciously, not sure what made him angrier the loss of a pair of pants or that the other world hadn't afforded him a way home. That it had in fact been a sop, from whoever was holding them here, to make them feel less like prisoners. And that for a short while it had worked.

He wandered the emptiness, then the woods as he worked his way back to the inn, the wolf hunting for... what he didn't know. Restless and pacing like a caged animal more than really searching for anything specific.

Then as dawn broke he found his feet on the well manicured lawn of the inn, shifting back to human form as he made his was wearily to his room.

[ooc: When the other world went away at midnight he got dumped back in the little world of the inn and he's annoyed. He also has no pants. He isn't really concerned by his nudity but please feel free to notice.]
st_unning: (back)
[personal profile] st_unning
Alcuin had been training with Qui-Gon for a number of weeks now. He had not even touched his sword (and certainly not a lightsaber), but occasionally wielded a well-weighted stick. Most of the time, however, he practiced mindfulness, forms, controlling his body, and reflexes. The final of which sometimes involved dodging small rocks that Qui-Gon threw at him.

He felt as if he was doing well, or at least as well as he could be doing. He was also incredibly grateful. Qui-Gon reminded him of Joscelin in some ways, and the forms he taught him reminded him of what he'd seen of Cassilines. And he was also relieved in some ways to not be wielding a blade yet. It still brought back bad memories.

Today, he was practicing on his own in a patch of grass near the entrance to the inn. He was barefoot, in loose-fitting cotton pants and no shirt. It was overcast, though he was wearing sunscreen anyway. (What a remarkable invention!) But he was particularly trying to get in touch with his body. Each movement as he went through the form deliberate and flowing into the next.
st_oriedqueen: (hmmm chinhand)
[personal profile] st_oriedqueen
Even for a witch, keeping track of inventory in a inn that magically resupplied itself on no definable schema, planning for non-magical and magical shortages and disasters, was only about 10% magic and 90% paperwork. For a witch putting the inhabitants of that inn before herself as penance for past evils and in place of her actual victims, it was 100% soul-searing. Especially because of her self-imposed restrictions on telling people what she'd been doing (they had to notice, because if she spoke through actions she wasn't being boastful or attention-seeking), it was also 100% isolating, lonely, and tedious.

Still, Regina persevered, today working on the health and healing aspects of her pencil-and-paper draft of a crisis management plan. The problem, of course, was that while she'd heard rumors of magical healing, no one had exactly jumped up and proclaimed their expertise in that area, and the few people with practical experience had more field medicine and triage. The only real light in that plague-threatened darkness was Henry's medicinal herb garden.

As morning passed into afternoon, Regina stood, stretched, reversing the bow in her back and then stowed her glasses in the drawer of the desk in the officer she'd appropriated in the otherwise unoccupied back office suite behind the front desk. In need of a break, she passed through the front desk area, told the Innkeeper (who scanned magically as human but never had anything useful to say) she still had the towels he'd given her before (which she did, in the beach bag she'd acquired from the shops), and headed out to explore the best locations on the grounds for fruit orchards and what, if any, structures she could appropriate or manipulate to greenhouse them so the magic wouldn't be as obvious.

High sun found her in the Madonna Meadows across the street from the registration and cafe building where she sat on the clean towels the Innkeeper had given her and made planning sketches. It had the advantage of plenty of room, even if it didn't have the 23 acres the hotel brochures claimed (some of the acreage had been lost to scrub desert by whatever planar shift magic had brought the Inn here. As she surveyed it she decided it would do for bulk growth, but in the event of another plane shift might be lost.

After 2:30, and lunch of a chicken Caesar salad, an apple, and cranberry-soda with a wedge of lime, she packed up her bag again and struck out again. This time she went to the "Secret Garden," and began investigating surrounding structures. When she found a useful tool-and-tractor shed, she rolled up the sleeves on her blazer and blouse, then began clearing the apparently unused materials from the shed. She did most of it using her physical strength (penance), but in the case of heavy objects or the tractor without the keys, she permitted herself magic instead.

[ooc: Find Regina anywhere she is in the post. She's not being showy with her magic, but if you're gifted, you'd probably notice. In the last location, she's uncharacteristically sweat-shiny and her hair's a bit of a mess, because she's not using magic to maintain her untouched glamor. I promise no fireballs unless previously agreed upon.]
st_illunsmeared: (clever girls 3)
[personal profile] st_illunsmeared
Date: February 14, 2017

After being Valentine-zapped, Dot runs to Miss Phryne for consolation.

[Here | pg | ongoing | embarrassment-squick]
st_arkcrowblack: (Uncertain)
[personal profile] st_arkcrowblack
Even before she knew for certain that it was the first of a month, Snow’s body had started bracing for it. She was wary and tense, preparing to cope with yet more people in the space of the hotel. It seemed that no sooner had she adjusted to whoever had showed up the last time, there was someone new again.

She didn’t want anything to do with the lot of it. That was what those busy women on the welcome committee were for. She didn’t think the committee was a stupid thing, not at all. Focusing on settling new people in kept the lot of them busy and away from her, and that was where she wanted them. They terrified her.

Snow White had only come into the main building to forage for food. The original plan was of course to turn right back around and escape before the expected rush (small or large) of new people to flood in.

But that was of course not what happened. When a universe was a pocket, it had less to focus on and fewer people to fuck with, and so Snow was entirely certain it was fucking with her when she was the one in the lobby when a new face came through the door.
st_aff: (Default)
[personal profile] st_aff
None of the guests noticed when the spiky-haired man-child in jeans and purple t-shirt, wrists wrapped in cheap leather and metal bracelets, arrived at the Madonna Inn a few hours before midnight on February 13. That, in itself, wasn't all that surprising. Eros, otherwise known as Danny Valentine, had millennia of experience doing his job without being spotted.

What was surprising was that the dude at the front desk did see him. Tall and Nondescript waved him over and then gave him a room number 'in case you wanted to rest'. But Danny didn't.

Want to, or rest. He spent the time before the clock struck midnight polishing his love gun. Not like that. He'd find a girl to spend his nameday with. He always did. No, this little beauty was made by Hephaestus himself. It shot love darts that disappeared on contact.

At midnight, kitted out with more love darts than there were people in this pink and gold monstrosity, Danny left his room and shot the first person he saw--and didn't wait to see what would happen.

No point getting a slow start. He had a lot of work to do.
st_oh_honestly: (Default)
[personal profile] st_oh_honestly
For a few weeks Dot had just pitched in where it seemed like she would be useful and tried to pick up any interesting information for her notebook. Not that she'd learned anything too terribly useful, certainly nothing that would lead to a way home. Then she'd discovered the small bakery in the corner of the main cafe that seemed to be the unofficial gathering place.

She watched it for a few days and then poked about in the pantry kitchen before deciding that what everyone needed - aside from a priest to give mass on Sunday - was cookies.

And bread.

And possibly scones.

What she made would be decided by what she could find in the pantry but most baked goods started with flour, butter, eggs and milk. So many of the people here seemed to lack... well what Dot thought of as essential skills. At least for a woman of her class. What Dot could do with a little flour and some eggs was a sight to be seen.

Which was why the pastry case was currently bursting with cookies, a pot of tea was ready on a side table and Dot was kneading bread at the counter wearing an apron over the most demure clothing the little boutique had to offer.

She may or may not have a smudge of flour on her nose.
st_illunsmeared: (clever girls)
[personal profile] st_illunsmeared
Date: January 1, 2017

Phryne and Dot plan at dawn.

[Here | gen | completed | abandonment issues]
st_alksthroughwalls: (sweet)
[personal profile] st_alksthroughwalls
Fifteen days into this particular strange trip, Kitty had redistributed alcohol supplies between the cafe, restaurant, and night club to make it possible to easily tend bar wherever people decided to gather. Today, as most days, she settled into the lobby cafe after chivvying the cook into chicken tenders and french fries (after convincing him it was a single plate meal). It was the closest she could get to "bar food" from him and someone would probably arrive sooner rather than later to make something else.

A few people trickled in after awhile, but none of them demanding. Like her, they drank coffee from the samovar she'd put out. And also like her, most of them had something else to keep them occupied. At the moment, Kitty had a notebook open (from the gift shop; she kept her school notebooks separate in case she made it home during the term) and was sketching plans to upgrade the hotel's computer technology. She needed more raw computing power to work out the energy requirements to do what Illyana did with a thought.

She lifted her head periodically to check for new customers, and had just seated herself at the end of the bar after refilling the samovar when the first new new customer arrived. Immediately, she flipped to a fresh page in the notebook and headed it "Day 15" and made a hash mark for one new arrival. Then she looked up from her notebook and offered one and all her best bartending smile.
st_aff: (Default)
[personal profile] st_aff
None of them planned it.

It just happened.

After a week of nothing but Iron Chef: Chicken, Sam had gone to the Copper Cafe to make himself a salad and found Steph already there making waffles. Dean joined them when he couldn’t find Sam in the room and immediately started pouring draft beers. Snow crept down a little later, apparently planning to make mashed potatoes to go with her chicken, and found Steph already peeling them.

With promises of alcohol and no questions, they convinced Snow to stay. And then, to their surprise, she not only helped Steph with the potatoes but overheard Dean bitching about a bakery with no pies and rolled up her sleeves to make one or three. The Chef drifted in a bit later, made fried chicken without talking to any of them and left them to their demented, sad but drunkenly social New Year’s Eve “party”.

By ten they were bored of draft beer and Sam and Steph went and raided the Steak House coolers for champagne—Steph because she wanted it and Sam because it was entirely plausible that an insurance investigator/estate appraiser would know something about what was decent champagne. But when they found a room service cart, they didn’t stop at champagne.

Why should they? They couldn’t go anywhere. They had nothing to do except when Sam and Dean could sneak off to bust the odd ghost or Steph to crawl the odd roof and Snow for a horseback ride. No reason they couldn’t spend the next three days drinking in the Cafe if they wanted.

Which was why when the new guests started arriving in groups of threes and fours, they were still there, drinking, listening to whatever crap music Steph on her phone and ready to share their booze for consolation. There wasn’t any way for people to get out of the lobby without seeing them, either, so they ended up consoling a lot.

Of course, there were four of them and eventually like twenty-six new people, so pretty soon it was less you’re stuck, it sucks, I’m sorry and more have a drink, grab a chair, have some pie. Some stayed in the wood-and-red leather cafe with its copper fittings, and some didn’t.

Whatever they chose, not one could say it wasn’t an interesting New Year’s Day.

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