tushanshu_logs | [Midnight Hotel] January catch-all

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[Midnight Hotel] January catch-all

Characters: Anyone, everyone.
Date: Month of January, 2016 (2017 in-game).
Location: The Midnight Hotel.
Situation: Catch-all post! Feel free to use this post for anything that happens within the Midnight Hotel during the month, using the subject header to label specific rooms or for specific people. See also the OOC note at the bottom.
Warnings/Rating: Mark your threads if content warnings become applicable, please!

As with last month, the Hotel’s wards are under stress owing to the fog. The effects are more pronounced in January; water temperature, in particular, fluctuates, and the staff will find it necessary to find a different way of disposing of the Hotel’s rubbish due to the incinerator being put out of commission. The doors still only exit onto Central.

Likewise, Anton is off his feet making sure the wards don’t fail altogether, but at least the work has made him too busy to dwell on the things that had been eating at him for the past few months. Even after the swell takes the turtle off the reef, most of Anton’s time will be spent repairing damage to the wards and making sure utilities are up to snuff as soon as possible.

Even still, the doors’ ability to access multiple sectors will remain offline for the remainder of the month, making it two months in a row that the Hotel’s access has been limited to Central.

[ooc: The Midnight Hotel’s status page is available here, with the rules at the top and ongoing status at the bottom. PLEASE POST TO THE STATUS PAGE IF YOUR CHARACTER WOULD LIKE A ROOM, JOB OR AREA IN THE GARAGE, OR ARE MOVING OUT. Anton will manufacture means of payment until Foreigners are able to properly offer recompense or choose to move out.]

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Valdis sighed, shaking her head, "It's not that I don't think you can handle yourself, I'm just...sturdier than you."

It wasn't a comment on his mental state, she was physically sturdier than most people because of her regenerative abilities and being able to revive on her own, made her far better suited to take risks.

He knew that she could take a hit, that she was a warrior. He'd seen her after the fight with Bakura, when there had been more of her blood on his jacket than in her body--or so it had seemed at the time. That she could fight he didn't doubt. But--

"Why?" he asked, with genuine interest. They'd been friends--best friends, aside from Anton--for months, and he'd never pressed her for details. "Because you're a shapeshifter? Or is this something to do with the whole 'Queen of Hell' thing?"

She'd told him that once, or something to that effect, back when they'd first met.

Right around the time she'd thrown water at him as if he were an ornery cat.

"Why?"

Despite knowing so many things about him, Valdis realized that Erskine knew next to nothing about her. The fact that he trusted her so much and yet knew so little astounded her.

"Yes to both, I suppose," She replied, "I can regenerate from any injury, even fatal ones. I am, for most purposes, immortal."

Erskine blinked several times, eyes wide with surprise. Immortal. Erskine himself was of course much longer lived than a mortal, and he would live several hundred years more if he didn't go back to his own world, but regenerating from a fatal injury?

"So that day I brought you here, after the fight with Bakura...?"

Would she have regenerated on her own? Was calling Milyn even necessary?

She winced. The fight with Bakura had been a unique circumstance, one she very much liked to avoid speaking of.

"That...yes, eventually," she replied, "What you must understand is that I am a creature of darkness, my sword, which caused that injury, repels darkness. The healing process might have taken days, or at least, it did the last time."

A creature of darkness. "No wonder we get along so well," Erskine muttered, under his breath yet easily loud enough for Valdis to hear. The revelation was not wholly a surprise. If he hadn't been able to guess some of it by her actions, the whole "Queen of Hell" thing was a pretty big hint.

It hadn't stopped them from being friends, and it was unlikely to change anything now.

"Is that why I felt sick trying to lift it?" He'd managed well enough, overall, though there had been a distinct case of nausea that accompanied gripping the hilt of the sword. That the weapon was magical was obvious; he simply hadn't known how.

She didn't comment on his mutterings, though she did slightly disagree with his assessment.

"Not necessarily," Valdis replied, "Revelations cannot be wielded by any but its master, unless someone is using it on the behalf of the master and is someone that the master trusts. Even then, by its very nature, it still might be difficult for someone with a lot of darkness to wield. The sword was forged by angels after all."

"Forged by angels." It wasn't necessarily a question. Erskine knew that in some of the other worlds represented by the Foreigners there were angels and demons--hell, Dove was an angel, wasn't she? That didn't make it any less odd to talk about them as if they existed. Not yet, anyway. Erskine had lived for four hundred years believing that angels and demons weren't real, that the only powers were sorcerers and the other magical creatures out there. Magical, not divine or infernal.

"So how does a Queen of Hell end up holding a sword forged by angels?"

Valdis sighed. That was the question that had been lingering in the back of her mind since she had claimed the sword.

"If you believe certain parties, it is because I used to be one. But the sword called to me at Evidet and is tied to my soul in some way."

He wasn't sure if the name Evidet meant anything. Probably someone had mentioned the word somewhere along the line--maybe when he'd been over at the Welcome Center and Jack had been trying to explain things, not so long ago. Erskine couldn't keep any of that stuff straight.

That wasn't the important part, anyway. The important part was--

"You were an angel?"

Valdis' eyes narrowed for a few heartbeats, "According to certain parties, yes, I used to be an angel before my soul was shattered and..." she stopped, her hesitation clearly evident as her features softened.

"I suppose there isn't much use denying it, no matter the injury to my pride." She sighed, looking down and crossing her arms. "Once upon a time my name was Meira, I know that, but I don't remember a life before becoming Valdis."

Meira. God, that hadn't been all that long ago and he'd nearly forgotten. The memory slid neatly into place now that Valdis had jogged it, and recognition flared briefly on Erskine's face. "So you used to be Meira, and Meira was an angel? But you don't remember being Meira." He paused, thinking back a moment. "How does a soul get 'shattered'? And what do you mean, 'certain parties'?"

Valdis sighed, "Right before I was summoned here from my own world, I was in the midst of a battle with the Archdemon Lord Amos. He claimed that he was my creator, that it was he who had broken my soul. Then he said he wanted to help, an offer which he followed up with the claim that my power had diminished over the years. Naturally, I tried to kill him for such outrageous insults."

That was perhaps a bit more information than Erskine needed, but she hadn't shared these facts with anyone before.

"He was perhaps correct about my power, but he was lying about having been the creator of my species."

Hopefully he wouldn't notice her deliberate avoidence of the first question.

The extra information actually helped, insofar as it distracted Erskine from the initial question he'd asked. He still wasn't used to the idea of Valdis withholding information from him, anyway, and it didn't occur to him right away that she would be avoiding certain parts of the conversation--or at least not for any reason other than because the answers might be painful. That he could certainly understand.

Valdis, it seemed, had come to occupy something of a blind spot in Erskine's mind. At least it was a pleasant one.

"Your species?"

Valdis looked at him, her eyes wide for an instant before she relaxed and raised a brow.

"You mean you don't know?"

She tipped her head, decided that she had asked a stupid question since he obviously did not, in fact, know.

"People have had many names for my kind over the years. Bargest, Grim, Black Shuck," she continued, "But the most common term is Hellhound."

For a handful of heartbeats after the question Erskine froze, wondering if he'd forgotten something so important. Valdis was his best friend on the turtle, aside from Anton. Had she told him all of this already? First Meira, now this--

No. Surely he would have remembered Valdis being a Hellhound. He knew she was a shapeshifter of some sort, and the Queen of Hell bit had stuck in his head for months now--possibly because it had come along during the same conversation in which Valdis had tossed water at him like an ornery cat. He hadn't forgotten this. They simply hadn't ever talked about it before.

Some friend he was, right?

"So you're a former angel, now a Hellhound, and you have a sword forged by angels that repels darkness." A pause, and then Erskine smiled wryly. "Erskine Ravel. Sorcerer, politician, former soldier, and traitor. Nice to meet you."

Valdis sighed, hiding her frustration. She understood that he had been broken, but it felt as if no matter what she did, Erskine would never get any better. But she smiled when he did.

"You forgot Queen," she quipped and then tipped her head, "Although I kind of quit that job."

After a pause, she giggled and held out her hand, "That's quite a few titles, can I just call you friend?"

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[Midnight Hotel] January catch-all

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massive spoilers for the SP series through book 8

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