st_oriedqueen: (bored)
Regina Mills ([personal profile] st_oriedqueen) wrote in [community profile] strangetrip2017-10-06 01:18 pm

[GP] All we can do is learn to swim

Grief is like the ocean; it comes on waves ebbing and flowing. Sometimes the water is calm, and sometimes it is overwhelming. All we can do is learn to swim. - Vicki Harrison

"You're sure?" Regina already knew the answer but demanding that Sam tell her what she already knew satisfied something petty in her. Or maybe just something hurt that hoped he'd have a different answer than her locator spell had already provided.

"Yeah." Sam half-rolled his eyes at her as he leaned across the pink bar counter to grab bottles of beer from the Silver Bar ice bin -- probably the results of Rebekah's last work-effort at the Inn -- for himself and his newly arrived companion.

Briefly, Regina considered burning a hole in the seat of his jeans, but it wouldn't bring Rebekah or any of the absent ones back. Instead, she took refuge in straightening her A-line and walking around the stylish counter Sam lay across like he was surfing the waves of grief. She took down a bottle of pointlessly pricey champagne, and then found the precise cut-crystal glasses Rebekah and Miss Fisher had preferred for their afternoon indulgences. She poured herself a glass and one for the person who dared her openly bitter expression.

"So who all are we missing?" they both said at once, glared at each other and sighed. They both knew the answers, in their own way and for their own reasons. And neither of them wanted to say.

Rebekah Mikaelson. Henry Winchester. Jack Robinson. Phryne Fisher. Dorothy Williams. Angua von Uberwald. Jaime Vegas. Harry Dresden. Lydia Martin. Raleigh Becket. Yasmeen. Joanna Beauchamp. Constance Bonacieux D'Artagnan. Lindsey McDonald.

"Grief is like the ocean," Sam clearly quoted from some fucking where, and Regina tuned him out until he added, "All we can do is learn to swim. Rebekah told me that."

Now Regina rolled her eyes; they weren't friends. "Shut up, Sam."
st_rikingblueeyes: (Ugly cry)

Corbie - OTA

[personal profile] st_rikingblueeyes 2017-10-07 12:06 am (UTC)(link)
It was absurd. Corbie was an adult, legally. She barely knew Joanna, and she hadn't known Harry at all. But Joanna had been such a kind, warm presence, and Harry hadn't been so bad even though he'd frightened her. She had been about to be brave enough, to scrape up her nerve and ask if he might teach her after all...

She was an adult. And yet somehow she found herself curled up against the wall and behind a chair in the lobby, sobbing like a child. She knew it was fucking stupid.

The barely healed wound of Felix and Mildmay's loss had torn wide all over again. And now she was still here and didn't know how long she would stay or where she would go if she ever left and two of the people who had offered to teach her were gone she would never, never learn to be a wizard.
Edited 2017-10-07 00:09 (UTC)
st_affandskull: (Default)

Re: Corbie - OTA

[personal profile] st_affandskull 2017-10-07 01:32 am (UTC)(link)
None of those who'd gone were anything more than the most casual of acquaintances to Dorian - Lindsey had pretended to know nothing about magic, and Jaime had been a charming woman, but that was all. It meant that he was largely unaffected by the air of gloom and incipient liver damage that permeated the public areas of the Inn, which was all to the good. Dorian Pavus did not have a history of handling either gloom or incipient liver damage with much dignity. He didn't disrupt the mood, either; apart from possibly Fenris, he had no enemies and wanted to keep it that way.

No, his intentions were more or less pure: collect food and drink and retreat to elsewhere before someone tried to reminisce at him. But then he heard sobbing coming from an empty chair and that was too odd not to investigate.

The solution to the mystery was nothing stranger than a young woman curled up on the floor behind the chair, weeping. He'd felt lost and despairing sobs like that himself, in the past, so rather than pass along, he took a seat in the chair she was hiding behind, offered his lemonade in the direction of the hiding-place, and said, "If misery loves company, I'll offer that as well as lemonade."
st_rikingblueeyes: (Lonely)

Re: Corbie - OTA

[personal profile] st_rikingblueeyes 2017-10-07 02:44 pm (UTC)(link)
Sometimes when you were upset, there was nothing to fix it quite like an unexpected gesture. Not because it made you feel better exactly, but because it broke your focus on your own misery. The offered lemonade did that for Corbie, and she stared stupidly for a moment before she accepted the offered glass. Crying was thirsty work.

She drank a few swallows before clearing her throat and managing a, "Thank you."
st_affandskull: (Default)

Re: Corbie - OTA

[personal profile] st_affandskull 2017-10-07 08:38 pm (UTC)(link)
"Of course." At the very least, she wouldn't get as dehydrated due to losing the tear-water. "Lost some friends in this departure, I assume?"
st_rikingblueeyes: (Miss Gartrett)

Re: Corbie - OTA

[personal profile] st_rikingblueeyes 2017-10-07 11:58 pm (UTC)(link)
Corbie nodded. Harry hadn't been her friend--mostly because she hadn't let him--but Joanna, yes. And Phryne, who had been such an encouragement and a help in Corbie's earliest days here. She'd looked up to Phryne, wanted to be like her. "Yes. And... well, one wasn't my friend, but I fucked it up and I never got to make it right."
st_affandskull: (Default)

Re: Corbie - OTA

[personal profile] st_affandskull 2017-10-08 05:07 am (UTC)(link)
"That is a bad one." It was one thing to lose friends, quite another to lose opportunities or mistakes. Both were a feeling Dorian knew well. There were a lot of things he'd fucked up and never made right... and of course, there was the other side - people who'd fucked him up and never made it right. "You seem to be handling it correctly, however."
st_rikingblueeyes: (So far away)

Re: Corbie - OTA

[personal profile] st_rikingblueeyes 2017-10-08 06:16 am (UTC)(link)
Honestly not sure if he was sincere or mocking her, Corbie squirmed a little and took another sip of the lemonade.

She shrugged awkwardly when her mouth was empty again. "Harry wanted to teach me. But I... well, basically ran screaming."
st_rikingblueeyes: (Ugly cry)

Re: Corbie - OTA

[personal profile] st_rikingblueeyes 2017-10-07 02:55 pm (UTC)(link)
Corbie's head snapped up at the touch, surprised. The pressure of her arm against the wall had been her anchor, but nothing grounded her like a touch.

She did not stop crying, but she relaxed into the hand on her hair and looked at least less miserable.
st_rikingblueeyes: (Young and vulnerable)

Re: Corbie - OTA

[personal profile] st_rikingblueeyes 2017-10-08 07:34 am (UTC)(link)
For Corbie, it was enough. She was a girl who needed touch like she needed water and air, and slowly she calmed down and her breath came slower and more evenly.

Her face was still a blotchy red mess, something that came from the pale complexion she must have inherited from her father, but at least she wasn't sobbing anymore. She accepted the hand up and let Regina help her to her feet. "Okay."
st_rikingblueeyes: (Lonely)

Re: Corbie - OTA

[personal profile] st_rikingblueeyes 2017-10-08 07:58 am (UTC)(link)
Corbie made a little noise of surprise, but her body caught up before she did and she all but melted into the embrace with a sigh, her head on Regina's shoulder, her eyes falling closed.

After a long moment, she dared to hug back.
st_rikingblueeyes: (Never shuts up)

Re: Corbie - OTA

[personal profile] st_rikingblueeyes 2017-10-08 09:49 pm (UTC)(link)
It had been a long time since Corbie had had a proper hug. Even longer since anybody had held her. Instinctively she turned her face into Regina's neck, which was at once the right and the wrong thing to do because it was something she used to do with her gran, and Regina wasn't her. Didn't smell like her.

All the same, she held on tight and breathed deep, letting herself linger for a long moment. After a time she nodded and lifted her head. "I'm okay." She wasn't, but she was better, which for now would have to do.
st_rikingblueeyes: (Angelic)

Re: Corbie - OTA

[personal profile] st_rikingblueeyes 2017-10-09 01:55 am (UTC)(link)
Corbie nodded again. "Yeah. I think so." Sweet things usually made her feel better, and something like ice cream... well, that was a rare treat at home. A luxury that girls like her didn't often touch. She managed a twitch of a smile. "And prolly the whiskey, too."
st_rikingblueeyes: (Need some support)

Re: Corbie - OTA

[personal profile] st_rikingblueeyes 2017-10-09 02:57 am (UTC)(link)
Corbie nodded her understanding and, after taking a moment for a last sniffle to try to clear her nose up and wiping her eyes with the backs of her hands, she made for the bar. She didn't particularly like losing her shit in public like that, but letting the storm out seemed to have done her some good. She wasn't bouncing, but she wasn't dragging, either.
st_rikingblueeyes: (Sassy)

Re: Corbie - OTA

[personal profile] st_rikingblueeyes 2017-10-09 11:55 pm (UTC)(link)
Corbie blinked and considered that idea for a moment. Then she shrugged and poured the liquid over her scoop of ice cream. It was all going to the same place anyway, and it wasn't like she'd never put anything questionable in her mouth before.

Her doubts went away when she tasted it.

She grinned. "Oh, this is dangerous."
Edited 2017-10-09 23:55 (UTC)
st_rikingblueeyes: (Like an urchin)

Re: Corbie - OTA

[personal profile] st_rikingblueeyes 2017-10-11 04:39 am (UTC)(link)
Corbie smiled around the spoon in her mouth. When she'd swallowed, she explained, "Where I'm from, calling someone a witch is rude. Maybe not from someone annemer, but from another wizard it's basically calling someone a backwoods hick." And all that implied from bad education to worse manners.
st_rikingblueeyes: (Default)

Re: Corbie - OTA

[personal profile] st_rikingblueeyes 2017-10-11 10:15 pm (UTC)(link)

Not sure what exactly to do with this information, Corbie only shrugged. "Annemer sometimes use it, too, but they don't mean the same thing. Mildmay'd use it when he was referring to someone with a specialty. Nature witch. Blood witch. Everybody else's a 'hocus.'"

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