#drabble!post

Nowadays, the hotel lobby is covered in broken glass. Furniture overturned, a smashed tea set, deep burn marks in the floor like an elemental blade etched into them. Or, at least you think it is. That's how you left it, anyway. You're not... in a good spot. No... Not in a good spot at all. You don't know how long it's been, or where you are exactly. But it's.... been a long time. So long that you're no longer even really scared, just.... apathetic. They haven't killed you, but god you wish they would. Then you'd have a chance to escape. A chance... If the atmosphere was dense at the hotel, here you were suffocating. So whatever was lurking down here... Honestly, it was better if you didn't try to fathom it.

It hadn't taken you too long to get back up to the theater, having made your way there plenty of times from the resort at this point. You had never noticed any birds on your previous trips, but honestly you hadn't really paid much attention either. Now you and Murdock were sitting on the steps outside, watching and waiting. In front of you was a birthday cake, made mostly of seeds and honey, with cashew butter ‘frosting’, topped with 9 blackberries and an apple-rose. It was.... dumb, really really dumb, you know. But last year you had made him a real cake and it had gone bad, you had barely been able to eat a piece of it. This year at least it won’t go to waste. You hope, you really hope your presence isn’t scaring away the birds. You sit there for a while, in the dark, ears drooped. Idlily you pet Murdock who seems to resent this entire ordeal. You’d already offered him bits from the cake, but he really didn’t care for seeds. “thanks for coming oUt here with me mUr... i appreciate it.” It was a shame there was so much cloud cover tonight, it would have been nice for star gazing. There’s a swooping sound and you look up toward the seed cake, grinning. An owl had indeed come to inspect it, but finding nothing of value to it took off again as soon as it came. Murdock snorted before starting to caw in laughter. You slump back into your sitting position, defeated. Right, owls were carnivores, weren't they?

You set aside anything it might have been sitting on beside your door, lock up, and head out toward the lobby. Your hunt was for Serket, but honestly you haven't spent enough time out of your room yet.

Man, you really need to stop moping around Valentines day. But in truth, you're not really sure what that looks like. You know you need to get back to New York soon, you've got some searching to do. But that almost feels like the worse option right now. There's at least people here to communicate with, even if you do keep sort of dropping off the face of the earth. Regardless of any of the aggressive fish folk it feels like the better option. But, you promised Lil Guy you'd return. And that was a while ago. The Banette already left around the beginning of the year, with the intent of checking for you at the hideout when it was convenient. But returning would just lead to isolation, and a burnout of whatever narrative energy you can currently muster. Still, no matter what you did the first step you needed to take was to be social again.

Well, that was certainly something of a distraction, breaking into every home and business within a few blocks of the train yard to see which had the best tornado shelter. You had a rough map of all the spots you thought could make for good refuge, the hotel you and the Prospitians had been holed up in unsurprisingly made the list of better places. Unfortunately now all you really had left to do was wait, and admittedly you weren't really convinced anything would happen. There's a lot of things Serket has warned you all about while traveling now, and not much has come to pass. Still, she had given you very useful information all the same, you now knew that Titan's migratory habits, and that... that was useful. Hoo, you... you really didn't think you'd ever see that creature again, no, it's been several years now and the entirety of the Antarctic fight had been one giant outlier for what you could find there. But no, Serket confirmed it herself, it was the very same.... you, you didn't know what to think. What to feel. It... it really wasn't much of a distraction from the thing that's been bothering you all day but by golly were you in better spirits about it. 11 years existing, 7 years dead and 5 since you'd seen that Titan. Hoo, for a Muse of Space you sure held on to dates and times like your existence hindered on it. Still, returning to those thoughts will just get you moping again. For now, what can you do, what can you prepare for? And, if the stars align, what will you do? What were you willing to do? And what could you stop yourself from doing? Things to muse on, but for now, preparing a shelter for the Prospitians should they need it sounded smart. You weren't really sure if the timeline was still hosting guests. Could a 10 foot tall cat even fit in a hotel basement? And, given what she was, would she need to?

It's... it's been hours now. Is Serket still out in the snow? Callie doesn't want to overstep her boundaries, Serket had said she didn't need help, but it was getting late and she really didn't think she could keep ignoring the fact Serket wasn't back in yet. She'd packed up half a floor's guest rooms worth of things in the time since she'd last checked in on the mechanoid, it was time to go try and help dig her out. After gathering up a dry coat and a thick blanket, and calling out her Mismagius, Arcane, Callie heads out the front door of the resort to hunt down this snow pile.