checkingout | i'm gonna change you like a remix [open]

Who: SKYE and YOU
Where: The main lobby, mostly (available elsewhere).
When: February 16th
What: If you're freezing half to death and can't control your powers, clap your hands.
Notes: Anyone is free to have wandered into range and noticed some WEIRD QUAKING going on. Available in prose or commentspam.

Something is very wrong here.

The tremors come intermittently, usually joined with particularly bad shakes on her part. It's not the first time she's noticed it—the bulb in her room shattered on the first day, the bible fell off the night table. Truthfully, she'd hoped "haunted" was the answer. It'd fit with the rest of the creepy atmosphere.

But this is something else. Blankets bundled around her, Skye departs her room, thinking it'll get her away from whatever the hell is going on with it, but the quaking follows her. She huddles up under the concierge desk in the lobby, tucked away from view. The fireplace doesn't do a lot for heat, but it keeps the main floor at a slightly higher temperature than the rest of the hotel (or maybe that's just the placebo effect of hearing it crackling). That's enough for her.

Or she'd like to think. Showing up in a t-shirt just off of a mission in San Juan was really biting her in the ass now: she hadn't packed for just above freezing temperatures. As her shivers worsen, so too does the way her abilities shake the room around her. Ten feet in any direction, a low-scale earthquake sets in. The pen cup rattles. The table lamp pops a bulb and falls over before vibrating off the edge of the desk, dangling by its cord.

And the fact that it moved with her from her bedroom? Well that just makes it harder for her to calm down.

Her shoulders hunch around her ears, and she raises her hands to pull at her hair, muscles tight to conserve both her body heat and her sanity. Something's wrong. Whatever those crystals in the temple did, it followed her here. So her breath is short with muted panic, afraid of herself and unable to get away from it.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

In settling down on the ground beside her, Regina goes against every expectation Skye has. Either she truly has no sense of self preservation, or she's a lot braver than Skye would ever give someone with Evil in their name credit for. Her eyes widen, expression softening to reveal the vulnerability lying deep below her fear.

Decrying her own goodness in the same breath as making the same promise to refuse to give up on Skye only makes the agent want to reach out for her, to reassure her in the same way that she'd reassured Mike Peterson. No, she thinks, you are good. You're here. But when her hand moves to start towards Regina's, she stops herself, afraid of what touching her might do.

Afraid of herself.

So she closes her hand reflexively, just short of contact, and holds Regina's gaze instead. Her lips press tightly together to restrain her emotions: her dread, her pain, her fear. When she finally gets them reined in, she ventures to ask, "What did you do? How did you get rid of it?" Because she doesn't want to keep it, doesn't want to stay like this. She wants to be fixed. To undo what her father had made wrong in her.

She doesn't want to freak Skye out again, and maybe someday they can really talk about the truth of it all. But for now, she just looks at her, giving her a tight lipped smile.

"I didn't get rid of it. But people decided to never give up on me anyway. And when you have that, even if it's just one person, it can be just as powerful."

It had only been Robin before Henry even knew who Regina was again, and he'd never left her side, even in the Enchanted Forest where she thought he was a complete ass. She notices when Skye stops short on touching her, and doesn't push it. Someone with Evil in her name has faced worse than this.

It's not an invigorating review, not exactly, but it's something.

Skye just can't be certain, here and now, that she's got anyone like that. If they knew what she was responsible for, about Trip, and the earthquake in San Juan. That's what her father had tried to put in her head, that they'd turn from her after the change. Well it was one hell of a change.

She scrubs her hands over her face, the low hum of the vibrating desk turning more intermittent with her touch-and-go shivers. "Lucky you," she notes, trying to latch onto the quip to level herself out. Lighten the conversation, take the focus off herself.

"It took a decade or three," she said with a half smile. "And since we're formally meeting face to face, I'm Regina. The not evil anymore queen."

She's not going to have that moniker here, and should someone she loves arrive, they're going to know there's been no trace of that woman she was.

"Skye." She returns, huffing out a breath. It's a deliberate move, trying to calm herself down. Red still rings her eyes, and her ever-wry smile is shaky, but it's progress. A conscious effort. Turning things on Regina is helping, that's for certain. "But … you knew that." Because she announced it on the subnetwork.

Shaking her head, she darts her tongue out and takes a few seconds to lasso in her heart rate, calming herself down. Focusing on what Regina says helps, so she questions her further, "You don't look old enough to be saying that. Is it the magic, the fairytale, or the total bad guy drinking the blood of newborns that did it?" Light humor twists with the words to keep them from reaching the status of a legitimate jab. Once a villain, always the butt of villain jokes, as far as she's concerned. That's the price.

Regina can take it - she already does from Charming nearly every day - and smirks back. "Monthly juice cleanse." She sighs though, leaning her head back against the counter. "The magic. When I cast the curse I did, time was frozen for twenty-eight years. Blood of newborns isn't my thing anyway."

Her tone is joking, but she's a little serious too. The amount of spells that called for newborns was disturbing, and Rumple had often made deals with them. It was one thing she'd never really been into, aside from taking away Snow's happiness.

"Think I preferred the version of that where you said it's not a thing at all," Skye comments with a slight scrunch of her nose. She lets that go, though, and looks up to instead notice that the earthquake has died down entirely. For the first time in—well, in hours—she's remembering what being still feels like. The cold settles back in, but it's preferable to the alternative, which is having no control over herself.

A soft look of relief captures her expression, and she lowers her hands to her lap, exhaling a few uneven breaths. Her eyes shut, and she tilts her head back against the panel of the desk.

Regina looks over at her, taking her in, wondering what happened to her. She figures this isn't exactly magical, a person typically knew when they had power. Unless you're Emma Swan, true love child extraordinaire, but that was a different matter altogether.

Holding out part of her blanket, she speaks softly. "You must be cold. I'm not going anywhere, so here." It's too cold in her room to really want to go back up anyway. And as long as she's here, doing whatever it is she's doing and getting clsoer to Skye, she might as well share the warmth.

For a moment, she's like a frightened bird, ready to recoil from the offer. But the softness of Regina's voice lures her in, and Skye swallows her refusal, pulling her own blanket in and scooting closer. She layers their blankets over one another, huddling close and slipping one arm around Regina's back.

Regina's slightly surprised by the gesture, but instinct kicks in and she realizes this is what she didn't have. When Rumple made her feel out of control, when she was terrified about the power she could wield (for as short a time that lasted), there was never someone to simply care for her. Truthfully, she'd never had anyone other than her father, and there's a gap in her life where he was gone, trapped in Wonderland.

Sometimes, she wonders if someone other than the Dark One had taught her how to use magic and control it, if she'd been taught hope and love and lightness, where she'd be now. It does't help to dwell on it, but maybe she can be that person for Skye, she thinks. So, she holds onto her, huddling up to stay warm.

i'm gonna change you like a remix [open]

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/wrap?

sure thing :)