Welcome to Gaia! ::

checking in

There were very few things that could make the notorious chatterbox Chel shut up. Silence was found when she was fastidiously did her makeup with purpose. Another way was in the silence of exhaustion that preceded naps. Sometimes when she zoned out to Metroid Prime too.

But the best way to shut Chel up was to present her with obscene amounts of wealth. While the hotel was tacky beyond belief, Chel had also never been somewhere fancier than a motel 8 and even then she'd been very young and didn't remember much.

She was owl-eyed the entire way, barely remembering to follow Jack up the stairs to their room. The whole time she was peering around, wondering if every surface was covered in gold, blue, or some variant thereof. Insecurity struck her the way it did when she went to large shopping outlets or particularly populated tourist spots. Everything was touched with a gloss of grandeur, and here she was in a shirt four years old that barely covered her stomach, threads running worn to the curves of her hips.

It was only when they'd reached the room that she remembered to breathe, but even then the flamboyant decorations had her intimidated. She put her things down behind Jack and paced to the window, gasping lightly at the view. "Wow ..." was all she could get out at the Acropolis, surrounded by buildings and sky.

As someone who had expected to stay in small town Michigan or Tennessee or ******** and as someone who could barely accept a wii for Christmas, it was too much. She looked to the sky, because at least that was familiar.

checking in

"It's awesome," she said, finding a way to tear herself from the window, if only to take a few glances backwards anyways. "Way better than camping."

She moved to the end of the bed and sat on the edge, running her hands along the golden edges. Beautiful.

A pit sank into her stomach and the same question that always did resurfaced. "How much is this?" A worried far off look settled on her face as she looked around from the tables to the ceiling to the library- "Let me at least pay part."

checking in

Chel had been so busy absorbing every expensive part of the room that she'd failed to even look at Jack. His hand made her flinch back to reality, finding it easier to focus on him than the room. Her fingers turned to meet his and she nodded. She did want to, but not out of a feeling of sickness, but rather gratefulness. It wasn't a bad feeling, just an overwhelming one.

She then let go to bend over and unstrap her shoes, kicking the heavy boots off and stripping herself of socks as well. "Can we? Aren't we supposed to ... I dunno, get down to work or whatever?" Not that Chel had ever been one for advocating hard work.

"I'll do what you wanna do, mission captain." Something of her lazy smile came back to her face, something more normal.

checking in

Chel barked a laugh at his archaic request and said, "How can I refuse that kinda bullshit?" She stood up and moved to the table, intent on grabbing the basket, but was distracted by the bathroom almost immediately. Solid marble with all sorts of fancy soaps and amenities. Bathrobes. The bathroom somehow calmed her enough to pique her curiosity at the rest of the room, rather than shutting her down as it had when she first walked in. Being able to pay relieved her considerably.

"Haw- s**t look at this! Y'could fit like 5 people in that bathtub." She ran her hands down the stone, immediately getting lost in it. The most important feature of the bathroom, of course, was the fact that she'd be on a mission where she could do her makeup in the morning. Such a blessing.

There was more shuffling as Chel left the bathroom and moved behind the bed to the miniature library stacked in the room. More investigation, partly from her sun twitch to take care of dangers in the room, partly out of wonderment that this was a real thing people actually afforded themselves. Everything seemed to impress Chel, from the small potted plants to the small trinkets scattered about the room for them. Here she'd thought her hunter room was fancy for having a kitchenette.

It took about ten minutes but Chel eventually made her way around the room before remembering that she'd got up for a reason. "Oh s**t- my bad." Some shuffling later and she had the basket in her hands, crawling back across the bed on all fours (minus the hand that was carrying the basket). "What you want first King Dickhead?"

Chel just laughed at the regal air Jack was exuding, going along with an igor-esque, "Yes, boyfriend," but not really feeling herself in a position of servitude. It was like an inside joke.

Seeing as he'd asked for grapes, she reached for those first. The alcohol would come in time, but she neither wanted to destroy this image and replace it with a drunken one nor have to do an important mission with a hangover. After opening the basket, she set it on the ground so she could shimmy her pants off. Even in fancytown Chel didn't like wearing pants if she could help it. She let Jack pick what he wanted to watch in the meantime.

She took one of the grapes for herself first, then scooted over beside Jack, laying on her side with one arm propping her up. If she was taking this seriously it didn't show because she had a hard time holding the grapes steady through her giggles. Instead of feeding only him, she took turns; first she'd give him one, then she'd take one for herself, sometimes she'd replace the grapes with her lips and so on.

"I wanna ******** on every part of this room," she told him idly, the same way a person talked about the weather. "Not now, but later." She had taken to her phone and was taking selfies, occasionally pushing his head into hers so she could text Chris about how ridiculous this place was. One picture had her pause to look at him; Jack's features (even with green dyed hair) blended nicely into the more regal setting, while she looked like a kid from the movie Annie; gifted the chance to visit someplace extraordinarily only temporarily by merit of association and circumstance. "You know you fit right in with all this fancy crap. ******** you."

"Okay Edward," she shot back sarcastically, rolling her eyes at his impatience, but with a familiar sort of flirtation. Her phone was set on the table and she turned back to him. "A whole hour?" she insulted with a raised eyebrow before pulling her shirt from the back to take it off from over her head. "Make it two. They got a bar by the pool and ******** if I'm not hittin' that up."

She leaned forward, intent on taking advantage of her boyfriend and the setting, but paused as an older man came on the T.V., droning in another language she didn't understand. She made a face and reached for the remote, not wanting some stranger to interrupt.

Chel's expressions followed Jack, from mollified content to self-examining confusion. When he declared a new timeline, she immediately flopped onto the pillows with the most exasperated expression.

So much for one night before the shitstorm. Then again, she should have known better; being with Jack was a continuous shitstorm. There was no peace, just a neverending dogpaddle towards a semblance of sleep.

"Okay," she responded, openly disappointed, but not in a position to fight. It was obvious in her slow slump off the side of the bed to her pants that she wasn't happy, jaw set. "Net gun's strapped to the back of my bag," she told him, pulling the denim over her legs and buttoning them closed. Boots were still at the end of the bed, but she needed to shuffle through her bag anyways. "We need it?" Black belt around her thigh to hold her two runic daggers, hidden under a flannel she tied around her waist. Chel didn't have the luxury of hiding her weapon in a handsome bracelet.

Hair in a ponytail, more belts wrapped around her thighs and waist (pockets with bandages, flash grenades, the hydra's scale, smoke pellets; pre-packed before coming), and feet jammed into boots. All done with an air of dissatisfied acceptance. "Leggo."